


Summer Menage II

by AnniKay



Series: French Lessons [4]
Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Mild S&M, Multi, Other, Sexual Roleplay, Threesome - F/F/M, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-17 04:10:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 115,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2296127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnniKay/pseuds/AnniKay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the next story in the Learning French Universe. It will be from many different perspectives, and will take care of the summer between graduation and their collegiate freshman year. Again, it is planned as a series of connected one shots. I hope that you will read, enjoy and review.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Back to Chicago & Grindstone

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own Nothing…Murphy, Falchuk, and Brennen along with Fox and others own this fandom and all the characters there in…Anything you recognize obviously belongs to them.
> 
> THANKS to everyone who has taken the time to review any or, in some cases, all of the stories in this series. Your encouragement helps more than you know. Take a moment and let me know what you enjoyed most about the update.
> 
> AN: I hope that you will read, enjoy and review.

Chapter 1  
Back to Chicago (Styx)   
Sam Point of View

Before we left, the moms sat us down and made sure that Puck and I had really amazing resumes that highlighted our strengths and victories. Looking at those, I would have hired us in a heartbeat. We’d also had head shots made, at Kurt’s insistence, before school ended. The moms had them reproduced like seventy five times each. Dani and Mom had created us a list of modeling agencies, and talent agencies that they felt we should contact. “Why spend your time there working some minimum wage job or doing back-breaking labor…those agencies have offices in Chicago, LA, and New York. Ethan, Antwan and Bryant all agree that there is nothing in your recording contract that precludes you from looking for employment in any other entertainment or fashion venues as long as you are up front with both the agency hiring you and with Warner.” 

We thought about her advice. It was kind of on point. I mean Mercy was gonna be making twenty grand for a couple of months of work…Puck and I needed to see if we could step up our game. We couldn’t make chump change all summer long. That just wouldn’t be right. We called and set up appointments with BMG, Ford and a smaller but similarly long lasting modeling agency called Wilhelmina. Most of the other agencies seemed to cater to female models only. It wasn’t exactly what we wanted to do with our lives, but it would be cool if we got to see one of our faces on a billboard or on the side of a bus.

It was after seven when we pulled out of Lima with the back of the Tahoe stacked high with three weeks’ worth of clothes for all three of us. Okay, so we really only bought about ten days’ worth of clothes each. We did bring laundry stuff to avail ourselves of the washer and dryer in our room. Since the room had a kitchenette that would let us cook rather than eating out all the time, we had dishes enough for the three of us and pots and pans. We had a couple of coolers full of enough groceries for about a week. Plus we had our hotel roller case, with three more sheet sets added to the original one. We also had our case of adult toys and Mercy had a case of lingerie that she didn’t want her parents to see if they happened to go into our room for any reason, like when DaniMom had to go and get her pretty red bridesmaid’s dress for Devon and Tonya’s wedding. We were flying out from Chicago and meeting the family in Florida. Of course we had our laptops, tablets, guitars and anything else we thought we might need. The plan was to try to start writing songs for our first album too. I had found and brought the sheet music for ‘Hell to the No’ with us. I wanted to play around with it. It would make a great teen anthem.

Since we were a little behind, we let Puck drive. He had a lead foot and the uncanny ability to spot cops from pretty far off, thus totally avoiding most tickets. He also had an almost nauseating ability to talk and/or flirt his way out of the few times he did get stopped. With him driving, we made it to the hotel around eleven. Check in was fairly easy. I mean we had prepaid for the entire month, so they definitely had our room on the ready. It was a fairly nice room. Nowhere near as awe-inspiring as the room we’d stayed in for Mercy’s audition, but it wasn’t too far beneath the room we’d stayed in for Nationals. Despite the late hour and Mercy’s early morning -she had to be at rehearsals at seven- we managed to get the kitchen disinfected and our foodstuffs unpacked before we made love and fell asleep. 

The next morning we were all up at five. I made breakfast while Mercedes got dressed. Puck took the time to strip the bed and make the bed with our sheets and blankets. The hotel sheets would get washed and put up in the closet to go back on the bed before we left. Mercy got dressed in an absolutely sexy pair of black leggings, gladiator sandals and bold red sleeveless cowl neck tunic top. We drove her to the film studios on West Fifteenth Place and when we returned, rather than parking back at the hella expensive on-site parking lot, we moved the Tahoe to a covered lot that charged only around seventeen bucks a day when you paid by the month. Then Puck and I returned to the room and cleaned up. We sprayed the drawers with Lysol, then Puck went into the hall and returned with a whole boat load of towels from somewhere. We lined the drawers with the towels and unpacked our clothing. There were enough drawers for us each to have one for our under wear, but the bulk of our clothes had to be hung up in the closet. Puck and I didn’t have anywhere to be until Mercedes texted us to come get her, so we decided to play around with our guitars. We didn’t get anything really written, but playing around we rearranged LL Cool J’s Big Ole Butt and rewrote it to say that to Mercy we’d be true. 

After our musical interlude, we got our shit together and went to Bockwinkles, a grocery market a couple of blocks away. We grabbed a few things that made meals worth eating like seasoning packets and spices. The place was pretty higher end, but the produce and fresh meats were amazing. I readied everything to make us a simple, but healthy dinner of lean cut flank steak fajitas and a big salad. By the time Mercy texted us, I’d marinated the steaks, made the salsa, diced all the veggies and put together the salad, and Puck and I had managed to get everything ready for our appointment at BMG the next day. I put the food into the fridge until we got back and we went to get our girl. She was waiting on us at the gate. “Here,” she handed us a pass. “Now you guys can come all the way onto the lot. Which is really important because on Saturday we’re going to start filming the club scenes…and you two are going to do some extra work all weekend. Actually the clubs scenes are location work, so I guess that it isn’t all that important that you can come onto the lot this weekend after all, but still. Isn’t it cool?” 

“How on earth did that happen?” I asked quietly. 

Mercy smirked at us. “I may have taken copies of your head shots and resumes to the director. He decided that you two would be perfect for the club interior shots. He says that extras are paid a hundred fifty a day, and he can use you two whenever the shots are, quote, culturally diverse.”

“That’s cool.” Puck laughed. “Three hundred buck for a weekend’s work, I can get behind that. Between the extra work and the modeling agencies…we should be able to pay our own way.”   
She sighed. “I really want to thank you guys for coming with me. But you don’t have to pay your own way…if you want to sit around the room or go sightseeing or hit the museums every day, that’s fine too.” 

I laughed. “Mercy, you know us better than that. We’re here to take care of you and to be with you…but we’d go stir crazy if we didn’t have something to do every day. Besides, if we make a lot of money, or a little bit…every bit helps us build towards our future.” 

Puck smiled. “Yeah, besides, I’ve got to put money away for Sarah and Beth to go to college. It’s kind of my thing. Plus me and Sam…we’re saving up for a little something something.” He smirked. He wasn’t lying. Puck and I had a plan; we figured that if we worked hard during that summer, and made enough over the course of the year, by the time our first album dropped, we should be able to present Mercedes with our ‘engagement’ rings. 

When we got back to the room, Mercy shooed me out of the kitchen and took over prepping the flank steaks. “Sammy, thank you so much for getting dinner together.” She said with a kiss.   
“This is awesome. But I can’t make you do all the work.” 

“You didn’t make me do anything Darlin’. Besides, it wasn’t completely altruistic. Puck and I figured that the sooner we fed you, the sooner we’d be able to feast upon you.” I growled wrapping her into my embrace. 

I was a little surprised when she started to laugh so hard I had to take over for her sautéing the beef. “Sorry. Sorry.” She muttered when she got her breath back. “It’s just that last summer when Artie was asking me about his feelings for Tana, I asked him if she was fattening him for a slaughter or prepping him as a sacrifice…and he didn’t know. Then you said that and it just stuck me as funny.” 

There was nothing I could do but shake my head. “Well…apparently Santana’s been enjoying her Artie based diet every day for the last year or so…and something tells me she won’t be missing a meal anytime soon.” 

Puck died laughing. “Artie isn’t missing eating Santana or Brittany anytime soon either.” Dinner was incredible. I’m not sure how, but I swear Mercy made the flank steak even better. Since I did the bulk of the cooking Mercy and Puck cleaned the kitchenette. Then we all showered and relaxed around the living room watching the first season of True Blood on demand and playing with each other. The show was good, but it couldn’t hold my and Puck’s attention very well. Mercedes was looking completely fucking sexy even though she was chilling in a pair of jogging shorts and a tank top. We carried her into the bedroom and made love to her for hours. 

The next morning we were up and at ‘em with the sun. Since we had a better idea of how long it would take us to get to the studio, the three of us spent time in the hotel gym. Then we all showered and got dressed. Mercedes put some chicken breasts in a marinade and left it in the fridge for that evening’s dinner. She approved our outfits and made sure that we had several copies of our resumes and our headshot portfolio. We had Mercy take her Tahoe since we didn’t know how long we would be or if we could leave when she texted us. Puck and I took the CTA blue line train to the BMG office and got there in plenty of time. When we got there we were shown into the waiting room of their Male Commercial bureau. After giving over our resume and headshots, they had us strip down to our boxers and took a whole series of shots with us mostly naked, then in a couple of different outfits. We were shot together, we were shot separately, we were shot with other guys and stickly female models. When we met with one of the agents, a very interesting woman named Stephanie Wimmer who congratulated me on being one of only two male models there that day not to spring wood when being petted by the female models. I wanted to tell her that considering the real woman we had at home, those skinny women just didn’t do it for us. But I kept it to myself. I explained to her that we’d be moving to LA then on to Manhattan and hoped to maintain our relationship with BMG even with all the moves. I did explain that since I would be beginning school in the fall, I wanted to stick with print ads and catalogue work. The moms had explained that we’d be able to manage our schedule best by sticking with those two genres. 

She seemed a little surprised that I wasn’t trying to make the whole modeling thing my future. She swore that I could end up as a famous runway model. I told her that that wasn’t where my interests lay. Puck and I didn’t get to leave until after six. We both had to be back the next day at nine for a shoot for the Sears fall catalogue. When we got back to the room, Mercy had already fixed dinner, and showered. She made a great chicken and penne pasta dish with sautéed veggies and pesto. As soon as we came in, we were hella excited. “We’ve already got a job.” 

“That’s so awesome.” She said happily giving each of us a huge, slow, wet, deep kiss. “You can tell me all about it as we eat.” 

So that is exactly what we did. “She said the job paid a hundred and fifty bucks an hour and we’d be there from nine to nine…so we should make around eighteen hundred bucks each before taxes.” I said happily. “Oh wait, we have to subtract the agency’s ten percent…I think, or maybe they take their ten percent and then we make one fifty an hour.”

“The way the contract is written they take their fee, which is actually closer to fifteen rather than ten percent when you do the math, then we get the hundred fifty. So as far as the advertiser is concerned they are paying about one eighty an hour…but we need to remember that we’ll be getting a 1099, rather than a W2, so we’ll need to put some away to pay our taxes in January.” Puck reminded us. “The same goes for you, Cedes, we don’t need to end up in trouble with the IRS.” 

“Hell to the no. I’m not trying to end up like Peabo Bryson or Wesley Snipes.” Mercy laughed. 

“This diva does not look good in orange.” We googled some information and talked about how much to save for our taxes and decided to open a separate joint account just to be ready when April rolled back around. 

After we got all that settled, Puck and I cleaned the kitchenette and showered. Then the night was a replay of the night before. With all of us having such early mornings, we didn’t even try to find out if there were any teen clubs nearby. Instead usually we had a nice dinner, we cleaned up, we watched TV, and we went to bed. Granted, once in bed, we made love for hours. When our alarms went off, we headed down to the gym. Puck and I acted as Mercy’s and each other’s personal trainers and Mercy showed us more of her yoga. Then we went upstairs and showered and dressed and headed to our jobs. Modeling wasn’t as easy as it looked. They didn’t mind Puck’s Mohawk like I thought they would, but they did make us wear makeup, all over when we did the boxers shoot. They barely fed us, because apparently models don’t eat. 

We were on our feet pretty much the whole day. Of course we were type casted. Puck got to model the jeans and motorcycle boots and leather jackets, I was stuck in suits and ties and khakis and such. But the photographer was happy with our pose-ability and our ease of doing pretty much whatever he commanded us to do; he told Ms. Wimmer to get us back for the shoot Monday as well. It was pretty awesome. Mercedes made us dinner again. Our beautiful girlfriend had made us a great shrimp and scallop stir fry with jasmine rice and yum yum sauce. While at Bockwinkles, she had gotten the things she needed for dinner plus a whole boat load of fruits and juices, and a blender. She had also grabbed some ice cream for dessert. 

We were up fairly early Saturday morning. I made us a healthy smoothie then we went down and worked out. We came back and showered. Then we did the laundry and cleaned our ‘apartment’. Then we did a little sightseeing. When we got back to the room, we made love --partially to calm Mercy’s nerves, and partially because we knew that we’d probably be too tired when we made it home to have our usual night cap. Mercedes had us assemble a couple of club outfits to choose from and we made our way to Hearts. The club had been rented out for the shoot. There were trailers and everything. Ms. Scott came over and greeted us before whisking Mercy to Makeup. One of the costume people came over to us and looked us over. 

They had us show them the other clothes we’d brought with us, then just made us trade shirts.   
Puck was wearing a soft blue button down over a dark blue statement tee that said ‘I’m Here…What Are Your Other Three Wishes’. I’d gone for a plain silvery gray pull over. Apparently neither of us were modest, we switched right there in front of the dude. Then he had us go to a different makeup area and they made us movie ready. It was unreal how the whole process worked. They shot crowd shots where we were in the club dancing and jumping and everything. It seemed weird not to have Mercy between us. Then they got down to the nitty gritty. They filmed a scene in the back so we all had to be quiet. The filming took a long while, so Puck and I texted back and forth with Mom, Dad, George and Becah. Suddenly Mercy burst through a side entrance looking like she was crying and angry and my heart yearned to go over to her, but I knew we couldn’t. The director yelled cut, and then we all had to dance around and act the fool while they filmed her busting through that same door into the loud crazy club. 

We took like five different versions of that scene. Then we had to fake a concert by Ms. Scott, who came out in a figure hugging, cleavage bearing black dress that was so hot I couldn’t help but wish that it had been what she was wearing the day she and Mercy hugged in New York.   
We filmed until seven in the morning. Puck and I used every out fit in our bags because they wanted the crowd to look like it was different nights at the same club over the years. Sometimes I’d have to sit out, sometimes Puck would. Mercedes came through in a few different outfits and one time I even got to dance with her in one little piece of a scene. We slept in Sunday since we had to be back at the club at six. It was cool. We were able to make some cash and spend some time with Mercy when she wasn’t filming and when one, or both, of us weren’t in a crowd shot too. The next morning, Ms. Scott allowed me and Puck to shower in her trailer so that we could make it to our Sears shoot on time. Mercedes actually was still filming when we left the set. 

That was pretty much how our time in the Windy City went. Puck and I managed to keep steady work doing ads and catalogue work. We were there for eighteen days and we had shoots for fifteen of them. We only got to be extras on the movie three more times, once in a street scene walking along Michigan Avenue. It was a day dream sequence where Ms. Scott’s character was dreaming of shopping the Magnificent Mile with her daughter…being rich and famous and coming home as the toast of her hometown. The other two times were less impressive locations, both times we were on the sound stage at the film studio. Mercy had to work every single day. If she wasn’t actually filming she was in rehearsals or doing soundtrack work. She actually managed to finagle us some work as studio musicians, which got us even more bank. It was hard on her but she understood that both of the directors were trying to keep to the schedule that would have her free in time for our move to New York. She was tired but swore she was happy. It was a strange, weird life we were living, but I couldn’t help but love it. It seemed to be an almost perfect fit for us.

Grindstone (Uncle Tupelo)   
Santana Point of View

Artie’s cousin Howard and his wife ended up staying until the end of the week after graduation. They were going to some big comic-tard convention in Denver on their way home. Bernadette laughed when I asked her how the hell Howard had bribed her to go to that thing. “Honey, some of the finest actors in Hollywood are doing comic book movies nowadays. I mean Chris Evans, the Hemsworth guy. Comics are hot now.” She reasoned. “Besides, the sex afterwards is always amazing.” She confided after making sure that no one could hear us. 

Those two were okay for nerds. I mean Bernie wasn’t too nerdy, even if she did dress too much like she was the Hobbit and Queen Quinn’s even shorter love child. But there was no denying her intelligence. Personally, I think she was single handedly, the smartest person I’d ever met. Howard though…That guy was as bad as Puck, just in a nerdier body. I know that I say some shit, but I mean to say every word that comes out of my mouth. I don’t think Howard can help himself. The filter between his mouth and his brain is either broken or it never existed. 

Thankfully he isn’t handsy…just hella creepy. But Cousin Howie isn’t so bad in my book. He rented Artie, Brittany and me a hotel room for the weekend after they left. After we checked to make sure that Howard hadn’t gone in and installed hidden video cameras, we almost broke the bed in that joint. It had been two long weeks since we’d gotten to really get it in. We took all kinds of advantage of that shit. Artie and I also took real advantage of Brittany; the two of us worked her over so good with his dick and my brand new strap on, she could barely walk when we left there Sunday morning. I suppose I should have mentioned that after a rather intense session of my own sandwiched between Artie and Brittany wearing her own strap on, I wasn’t walking all that well myself when we returned to our homes. We’d really needed that time together. The next week wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it was definitely tedious.

The job market for people with only a high school diploma in Lima, Ohio was non-fucking-existent. Which, of course, meant that we all ended up working at the mall. Monday afternoon after looking through Craigslist, the newspaper and Monster.com, we printed out our resumes forced Tessa and Aidan to come with us and headed to the mall. George didn’t really tell Tessa she had to work, but she wanted a car and since Becah and the Jones had, with George’s, implied consent, promised to get her a Focus if she paid for the insurance, maintenance and gas, she decided to get a summer job. Artie rolled into the Apple Store and came out as a Genius…with a job that gave him a fifteen percent discount on all their products and paid West Coast minimum wage --which meant he got almost eleven bucks an hour. Tessa had strolled into Books A Million, gotten pissed off at some schmuck who was putting Poe in the same section with Stephen King and got hired without actually applying. It took Aidan, Brittany and I a little more work to find our jobs. I put in applications at Macy’s, FYE, Victoria’s Secret and every jewelry and makeup store in the mall. I got call backs from Sephora, Macy’s, Kay, and FYE. FYE started off at eight an hour which wasn’t too bad, but they only gave a five percent discount for sales associates. That just didn’t work for me. Sephora paid ten and gave fifteen percent off. Kay Jewelers called just as I had wrapped up the phone interview with Sephora. They offered me an extra quarter an hour over Sephora and ten percent off all regular jewelry and fifteen off the really, really good shit. I hopped on that one. 

Annoyances aside, by the following Monday we were all gainfully employed. Brittany had found a good job at Body Central that only paid eight an hour but the manager was pretty much paying her to just walk around in the clothes and make people feel like they could look like her if they shopped there, so she was good. Aidan had gotten a job at the MC Sports which sold anything you could even nominally link to sports of any variety. We were the low folk on the totem pole, so we had the shittiest hours. Thankfully the mall closed at nine on most nights and six on Sundays so we were still able to have a social life. In fact that Friday night, Artie and I were scheduled to provide live entertainment at Club Exxcess. We each made a hundred fifty a night for five hours work. Best of all that was total, we broke it down to an hour of duets, in between alternating hour long solo sets. We got stage time together and separately and did any kind of music we felt like in that moment. The DJ was great about keeping up with our last minute set changes.

It was pretty nice change and great exposure…I pretty much considered it paying our dues. At the end of every week, I was kind of pissed, after taxes and FICA…who the Fuck is FICA in the first damn place and why do they want so much of my hard earned money…I was barely clearing two hundred bucks at my day job. Per my parent’s decree I had to save half of everything I made that summer. Per my own decree, I thought I could survive on a third…but that wasn’t happening, not when a third was only about a hundred bucks when you included what I made on Friday nights at Excess. Or so I thought. My parents were on some ‘teach her the value of a dollar kick, but Mom still paid when we took our bi-weekly trip to Jewels. Then when we went shopping, she was still buying me shit. I have never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I kept my trap shut and buried my confusion. I deposited all my earnings keeping just enough back to buy myself lunch or dinner when I had to work.

Apparently that was my parent’s plan all along. Sometimes parents baffle me. Brittany was putting all of her money away too. Artie, however, we had to sit down and talk with him. He had lost his mind. Every time we took him home he had some new tech. I couldn’t let him keep that up all summer. “Robo nerd, you can’t keep spending so much on your tech. I get it…you like computers, but how many does one man need?” I asked quietly.

He laughed hard. “Damn Devil Doll, with as much shit as I’ve bought since I started this job, we could have built a super computer capable of taking over the world. But my name ain’t Miles Dyson. Naw…I got me a little side hustle. You know how I get a fifteen percent discount…well for a hundred fifty bucks, two hundred for the desktops…my discount is your discount. For the most part, old dude is still saving some money, and I’m making cheddar like my last name was Kraft.” 

I rolled my eyes. “You know that they can and will fire you for that?” I scolded.

“Nope. They said I could use the discount for family members…nowhere does it say immediate or biological…therefore they cannot tell me who is or isn’t my fam.” He said with a grin.   
Brittany piped up with a giggle. “Tana, you’re rubbing off Artie.” 

“You mean I’m rubbing off on Artie.” 

“Yeah…that too.” She threw us a cheeky grin. Her eyes locked on my hand where I was actively running my finger over his damn zipper. “I think someone is wanting some Artie Lovin’.” 

There is a reason I never call Britts stupid…she may have her head in the clouds, but her mind is still as sharp as a tack where it matters. We drove out to the lake and Britts and I took turns riding Artie until we were all mostly satisfied. That seemed to set the tone for the first half of our summer. We spent as much time together as we could. We hung out with Manhattan Pippy and her boo Closet Nerd Boy. We chilled with Baby Puckerman…I swear that kid spent more time with Puck, Trouty and Retha’s mothers than he did with his own. Granted I didn’t really blame him. That woman made me uncomfortable every time I had to be around her. She gave off crazy vibes. Less so than the Hobbit…but still way crazy. Other than chilling with our friends and working our relationship shit out, we worked.

I never thought I would be a jobber. But I found something very true about myself that summer. I have a very, very strict work ethic…for people paying me to be there. I was seriously tardy all the time in school, but neither of my employers that summer ever saw me arrive even a minute late. By the end of my second week at the jewelry store I was given a big ass bonus to celebrate two straight weeks of having the highest upsale ratio. Apparently all that time learning to manipulate people from Sue really helped me on the sales floor. 

I also found that I was going to truly miss my parents. I had been positive that getting the hell out of Lima would be easy as changing my panties; I wouldn’t care enough to even look back. But, while I wouldn’t miss most shit about that place, there were people I would definitely miss. I mean, Shelby and David let Artie, Britts and I baby sit Beth for a whole afternoon. I would miss seeing all the Puck and Quinn and surprisingly enough, Mercedes, that kept popping out in her personality. I would miss my parents, even if I was pretty sure that they were planning on using my absence to start swinging at home rather than having to drive all the way down to Columbus. It really wasn’t anything I wanted to think about. Of course, Artie found it hilarious that my parents were into all that they were. “Well, sorry Devil Doll…it’s just that…it’s not exactly unexpected…I mean you had to get your appetites from somewhere.” He’d said before dissolving into laughter. I swear if I didn’t love him so much I’d have pushed his wheelchair into oncoming traffic. 

That thought reminded me. The third week of July brought with it Britts, Artie and my first anniversary. I know Mercedes and her guys had done it real quiet, just went out just the three of them…didn’t breathe a word about their shit to nobody. It wasn’t hard to do, we were all so wrapped up in Nationals prep that I don’t think Girl Asian even noticed and she pays attention to that kind of stuff for everybody. I needed to think about how to show my loves that they were a lot more important to me than I really liked to let on. I was going to do this for them, and I just knew it was going to be fucking epic.


	2. It's Not My Place ‘In The 9 To 5 World’ & Justify My Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Joan Rivers…there will never be anyone else who can make me watch an entire red carpet arrival show. You were one of a kind. 
> 
> THANKS to everyone who has taken the time to review any or, in some cases, all of the stories in this series. Your encouragement helps more than you know. Take a moment and let me know what you enjoyed most about the update.

Chapter 2  
It's Not My Place ‘In The 9 To 5 World’ (The Ramones)  
Puck Point of View

I haven’t ever thought that I would be doing some shit like I was doing the summer after I graduated high school. I’m a fucking male model. It would be fucking lame if they didn’t pay me so much money to do it. After the Sears shoot that photographer, Goykhman, basically got Stephanie to send me and Sam whenever he needed male models all freaking month. We did some ad for the airline trades papers that was advertizing Boeing’s huge new plane, even though we weren’t listed as commercial talent, he used us for a Walgreens commercial and for a State Farm one too. We even got to do a shoot for A-1 steak sauce. If I’d had known that was an option I wouldn’t have grumbled so much when the Moms brought up modeling as a thing. It was hella cool. 

We didn’t do every shoot together. Sam had one day shoots for Caterpillar and John Deere and I got one for Harley Davidson…which was awesome by the way. I also got to spend a day dressed as a Marine while I did a shoot for the company that rigged out Hummers for the military. It was kind of weird that the only time we spent in a club was for work. What was weirder still was that I didn’t mind. I mean, we spent all our free time either exploring the big city, or boning. We kept our room clean and kept ourselves fed without having to go to restaurants every night. In the mornings we worked out. Sexy Mama’s yoga worked for our warm-up, then we did some light cardio and some weight training after that. We talked and laughed and Yeshiva, it was totally awesome. I have never been so happy. But I never thought I could be this happy without breaking some heads or hearts or laws or something. 

We put a third of every paycheck into our solo accounts, and two thirds into our joint account. When Sam and I got paid, we took a lunch break and ran to the bank. We opened a very special savings account. We each put half of our thirds into that account, because we were saving to get our woman a ring…or maybe two…we weren’t sure yet whether we were gonna go with one engagement ring and two wedding bands, or two engagement rings and one band. I was leaning towards going all in on the one engagement ring. Get her something really blinged out and then we’d have some time to save up and get her two diamond studded wedding bands before our commitment ceremony. 

Of course, some of our free time ended up being used on shopping. Mercedes Jones is her mother’s daughter and the Magnificant Mile has some of the best shopping in the country. I didn’t really mind shopping with her, watching her try on sexy shit is definitely inspiring. Of course, one day Mercedes determined that Sam and I needed some stuff too. It was a lot less fun after that. But then she took us in this really ritzy lingerie place and then we headed back to our apartment. As soon as we entered the room we dumped our purchases on the couch, made sure the door was locked in every way possible and rushed into the bedroom. Sam and I kissed and caressed her as we stripped Sexy Mama down to her pale cream bra and panties. A lot of the time, once we get in the bedroom, we strip her naked and are on her in an instant…going for long and slow the second round. But instead we took our time. 

The three of us climbed into the bed, with Sexy Mama in the middle as always. Sam and I took turns kissing and caressing her. Slowly making her hotter and hotter we kissed and sucked our way from her pretty lips down her neck, taking care not to mark her…after all she did have to work the next morning. We were real careful until we got to her hard little nipples. I sucked and nibbled her through the lace and satin until she was so ready for more that she took that bitch off by herself. She couldn’t handle the wait and torment anymore. That was fine by me. I fucking love the feel of her stiff, hard nipple on my tongue. I love to lick it and bite it just hard enough to make her pussy gush. Sam got his fingers wet first, then he pulled them up and drew a heart on Sexy Mama’s sternum. After I licked that tasty heart away I returned the favor for him. That was all the teasing out Hot Chocolate Mama could take. She shimmied out from between us and got rid of her panties. All that came next was a series of moans and groans, grunts and begging as Mercedes took her dick. First she put a condom on Sam and rode him until his eyes crossed and he flooded that bitch like a hurricane. Then she did the same to me. Once Sam got his breath back, he fucked our beautiful woman from behind while Cedes licked and sucked me back to a fully hard state. 

As much as I love hitting Sexy Mama from the back and feeling those big, bodacious ass cheeks of hers pressing against me, I love watching her pretty face as she cums just that much more, so I turned her onto her back before I sank into her tight as hell even after all the boning we’ve been doing for the last year pussy. We made love for the rest of the afternoon. None of us felt like cooking, so we showered and got dressed and walked to Hoyts in Hotel Seventy-one. We try to eat healthy even when we do hit a restaurant. After living by Sue’s healthy eating rules, Cedes hasn’t been able to get her food groove back exactly the way it was before. Moms D told her that it was better she not try to go back to the way she ate before, too much in her life had changed, and it was better to make the lifestyle change now rather than later when a doctor was mandating it. Sometimes I worry about Sam and his body image issues. When he’s around the other models, sometimes he finds himself getting self-conscious about eating a regular portion…so I have to make sure that he doesn’t start in on that whole borderline manoreixa shit. Guns and abs are sexy, being able to count his fucking ribs is not…Same with Cedes, it’s cool if she wants to stay healthy. I fully support her in that, but the second her tits or ass start to go, I’m sending for Grams Mae and feeding her ass until it plumps back up. 

We were definitely not trying to spend like we had when we came to town for the audition…that was some special occasion shit then…this was just living so we kept our choices on the cheap. We all got grilled asparagus, ‘cause trust, if you’re boning…that was not one of those veggies you can eat unless your lover eats it too. It makes stuff smell all funny. Sam had the spicy, crispy calamari and Cedes got the crispy shrimp while I went with the sliders. The food was good and we managed to keep it to sixty bucks. We were making good money, but we didn’t want to be irresponsible about that shit. What if shit didn’t work out the same in LA as it had in Chicago…we’d need the cushion…not to mention that the more we saved over the summer the better off we’d be when it came to studio time in the fall. When we made it back to the room, we were ready to knock out. 

We have a nightly ritual though. Whenever we’re in our room at a decent time, we Skyped with the siblings --whichever siblings we can get on the horn. Since they each have their own tablet or other tech with a webcam, we can all fire up with a different brother or sister on our stuff…that night I decided to see if Jake was busy. Since it was technically a week night, I figured he might be available. “Ssup Big Brother.” He said when he clicked on. “You doing it big in the Windy City? What are the chicks like?” 

“Hell yeah, I’m doing it up big. If you call working every day, and some nights…doing it up big.” I laughed. 

“Why the hell aren’t you getting some club time in man? Better to have fun and maybe sacrifice some of your professionalism while you’re working and making that cheddah, than to fuck up your shit with your boos by bein’ a lame-ass.” He shot back. “Cause I’m telling you, if you pissed MeDe off, there would be a grip of dudes trying to take your place.”

“Think I don’t know that. That’s why Sam and I are working on putting our rings on Ms. Thang.” I told him quietly. Of course my crazy ass little brother started to sing that damn Beyoncé song. Actually I ain’t hatin’ on that shit, that video helped a brother out on many a chickless nights back in the day. “Anyway, Mercedes Antoinette Jones don’t play around…she’d much rather we work hard now and play later on when we aren’t so strapped time wise. So what’s up in the old home town tonight?”

Jake shrugged. “Tessa and Aidan had dinner at the diner tonight…I had to pull her to the side and make sure that she was okay. She had so many hickeys, it almost looked like he had choked her…but once I did a little inspection it was easy to see that it was just a necklace of love bites. Still I had to remind Aidan that just because I like him doesn’t mean that I won’t kill his ass if he don’t keep that shit all consensual and safe and shit.”

“Good Looking out.” I said fiercely. “But something tells me that we need to be checkin’ Tessa too. Aidan won’t say no to anything she wants to do. Hell, part of the reason I was so against her getting started down the sexin’ road was cause something in her eyes screamed freak-a-leek. I’m taking worse than my ass and I only have like ten things I wouldn’t even consider trying…fifteen tops.” 

“For real…I think my list is somewhere around five.” Jake sounded bemused. 

I had to admit I was curious. “What are they?” 

“Feet, dudes, no offense bro…but for me that orifice is exit only…vomit-slash-scat, hirsute, and the elderly.” He listed quickly. 

“So, you’d do piss, you’d bottom or top for someone else.” 

“Okay that is such a huge ass no on pee…what is bottoming or topping?” he said curiously. 

I laughed. “Bottoming can be catching rather than pitching but usually it means subbing…letting someone else run shit. Topping is running the show.” I explained. “There is pain, from mild to extreme. Shit some people do blood play…where making each other, or just one party, bleed is part of getting off for them. That’s how I ended up with a nipple ring back in the day…You really need to look into what kind of shit other folk could be into before you say you only   
have five things that are completely off the table.” 

“Where the fuck do you white people come up with that shit?” He gasped. “Bleeding…I mean it’s one thing if she is on the rag, but to do that shit on purpose ain’t sexy. I can let her run shit, I can tie her up and run shit like a boss…but if she think cutting on me is gonna happen she is out her damn mind.” 

I chuckled. “Oh please, there are just as many black folk into weird shit too…they are just better about keeping their shit on the DL.” 

He rolled his eyes. “Well, I hope you ain’t into no sick ass shit like that.” He groused. 

“We have our own kinks and shit, but blood sure as fuck ain’t one….though I so want to get my nipples redone…that was some hot shit.” I defended. “Any way…I just want you to keep an eye out for Aidan too…if they get in over their heads; he’ll take the brunt of the damage. That’s just who he is. He’s like Sam…a protector…if shit goes south and Tessa is even a little bit hurt, he’ll blame himself a lot more than she’ll blame him.” 

“Gotcha.” He nodded. “So not getting grossed out thinking about our sister’s sex life or anything but…let’s change the subject shall we? Moms D wants me to go with you guys to Florida for Devon and Tonya’s wedding. Mom is acting weird about it.” 

“You want to go?”

He scoffed. “Five days in Florida going to beaches and chilling with my brothers and sisters, maybe even hooking up with Tonya’s nonattached bridesmaids or cousins or friends…or staying here in Lima, all by my damn self, schlepping and slinging food for people who don’t tip me worth shit either because of my age or the color of my skin? Oh that is such a hard choice.” 

“So talk that shit out with her. Let her know if it’s a money thing…we’ve got you. If it’s the whole hard to let go of her baby thing…we’ll you’re growing up…she might as well start getting used to you leaving the nest. You trying to stay in Lima for college?” 

“Hell naw…I’m not even trying to stay in Ohio for college. The closest I’m willing to stay is Chicago, I’d prefer Cali or Seattle…NYC wouldn’t be bad.” He told me with a grin. 

“Well than let her know that. Maybe she was thinking you’d always be her baby or something.” I reasoned. “Then again, maybe she’s freaking out cause young black men and Florida seem to be a dangerous combination lately.” I thought about it for a minute. “In fact, when we’re down there…you hang with me or Sam or the dads. I’m telling you…someone tries to fuck with my little brother that shit isn’t gonna fucking fly. That dude’s parents were way dignified and shit… I do not have a dignified bone in my body.” 

“True…neither does Moms.” He chuckled. “But for real…think we’ll have some time to hit St. Augustine, and there is an old ass fort near the hotel that Moms D was telling me about too.” 

“No choice in the matter, kid…Sam and Cedes are already talking about Fort Clinch, and going to some town nearby that is technically even older than St. Augustine, but the French colony died out so they don’t get the notoriety. You can come with us. Sam wants to drive up to Savannah and do a ghost walk too.” 

Jake nodded excitedly. “That would be some cool ass shit right there.” I shook my head. I am surrounded by closet nerds. Ain’t this about a bitch. I heard his moms saying something in the background. “Damn…gotta go. I’ve got the breakfast shift at the diner in the morning.” 

“Alright…don’t forget to ask your mom why she’s not wanting you to go to Florida with the family. Maybe all that stupid shit has her worried.” We signed off. 

Sam was still chatting with Sarah, and Cedes was talking with Tessa. I stuck my face in to say hello and then headed into shower. As I got cleaned, I started to wonder again if I’d always been this guy underneath the asshole-i-ness or if being with Cedes and Sam had helped me evolve into this dude. Sam and Cedes joined me and those thoughts receded to the back of my mind again. Our love was strong and if my new persona was the result of evolution or just them allowing me to be me…either way, I was happy as hell and was gonna do whatever it took to stay that way.

Justify My Love (Madonna)  
Tessa Point of View 

There was nothing on earth that could have surprised me more than the parents sitting me down after Sam, MeDe, and Noah left for Chicago to tell me that they wanted to get me a car. 

“It’s not a truly altruistic idea.” Benton told me with a big smile. “Next school year, we’re kind of hoping that you’ll take over sheparding the kids back and forth to school. Danica and Gabby are looking into finding the best daycare center for the twins. Sue and Shannon have begun the process of expanding the Junior Cheerios and Titans to actual programs within the school system. They will be the pilot programs to see if all high schools should have something similar.”

“Whoa…that’s major.” I said unthinkingly. 

Sander chuckled. “Very, but if they can get it off the ground, they’d both probably end up with a staff that works under them like a lot of high schools have rather than being lone wolves due to Figgins’ penny pinching ways.”

That set the parents off and it took them a minute to come back to the point. “Anyway, we know that Aidan is fine giving you guys’ rides after practices, but it wouldn’t be practical or polite for us to ask that he serve as your driver all the time. Besides…it could cause an inequity in your relationship that could later prove detrimental.” Becah said with a wry grin. “So, we’ve managed to get your father to agree to letting you have a car.”

“Hey.” Dad muttered. “I wasn’t against her having a car. I just don’t see the need to pay twenty thousand dollars for one. I had a line of a great used Crown Victoria.”

Becah rolled her eyes. “Tessa is not riding around in an old police car.” She growled. “It would be embarrassing…and it might well have given Noah flashbacks. Until he started sleeping with Sam and Cedes every night he was still having nightmares about juvie.” She chided. 

None of us liked to think about what could have happened in there that would give Noah of all people nightmares. “So, I’m getting a car?” I asked to bring us back to the original point.

“Yes.” Gabby laughed. “But your father has some conditions.” 

“Since unlike Mercedes, you won’t be getting something that’s already been paid off and since Benton absolutely refuses to let me tell you that you have to pay half of the car note every month you’re going to be responsible for your car insurance and for maintenance.” Daddy said sternly. 

I nodded. That sounded reasonable. I mean, I didn’t want to take advantage of the kindness of our family. “So what am I looking at exactly here?”

Becah took over for him there. “Okay since you have good grades and took Drivers Ed in New York, you get some decent discounts on your insurance. Your premium for the year is just under twenty two hundred dollars. The car you’ll be getting has really good gas mileage so you should be fine budgeting a hundred dollars a month for gas money, and about two hundred for your oil and air filter changes for the year. So you’ll need roughly thirty five hundred dollars for the year.”

I laughed. “Umm…you do realize that I haven’t gotten a raise in my allowance since we moved right?” 

Dad shot me a look that clearly said I wasn’t funny. “You can get a summer job. I’m still going to give you your allowance, so you can save what you make and put that towards to your contribution to the car.” 

I didn’t really want to spend my summer slinging food I didn’t even eat to people who probably needed to stay the hell away from it themselves…but for a brand new car…any car that didn’t have a steel cage between the front and back seats, I’d do whatever I had to do…short of prostitution. “Alright.” I said thoughtfully. “I’ll start looking in the morning. Can I ask what kind of car it is?”

Benton’s laughter filled the room. “Yes. In fact, we’re going to take you with us so that you can pick out the color.” 

I tried to stay all calm and contained. But I’d played it cool for as long as I could. In a totally pathetic display of joy, I started to jump up, run around the room and hug people. It was rather uncharacteristic of me to display such exuberance. After expressing my happiness all over the adults of the family, I headed to MeDe’s room and shot off texts and emails to all my siblings, and the rest of the New Directions I was close to. I didn’t really have any friends other than them, but that was still a lot more friends than I had had before the move. I was still very, very, very excited as we headed home. As soon as I got into my bedroom, I locked the door and Skyped Aidan. 

I told him everything and he laughed happily. “I’m so happy for you, Baby. You know, I work during the summers to have money for my car during football season. In fact, the only reason I didn’t find an afterschool job once the season was over was because I wanted to spend that time with you.” His gorgeous eyes started to darken. “Speaking of…what are you doing tomorrow?” 

I shrugged. “I need to start looking for a job.” I smirked. “Why?” 

“Because my mom and dad are taking Evan, Stevie and their friend Rickey to Little Squirts for his birthday…so I’ll be home all alone from like ten until after dinner.” He grinned. 

“Ohh, that’s a lot of time.” I said thoughtfully. “Think we can finally do that roleplay I told you about?”

He nodded. “Which one? The hooker and the Playboy, or the intern and the senator?” 

“Either…maybe both.” I whispered. “Dad and Becah will both be out by then I could dress up as a hooker and meet you out front…” 

He licked his lips and I could tell that just the thought was working for him. “I’ll roll down the window and you can convince me to give you a ride. Then when we get back to my place…”

“You can do whatever you want to me.” I finished for him feeling my passions ignite as well.   
“What do you think you’ll want to do to me?” 

“Hmmm…lots of things. Wanna watch you suck my dick…wanna paint your pretty face with my cum…wanna shove my dick up that sexy ass…”

I moaned. We’d talked all around that particular activity. The more we discussed it, the more I wanted to experience it. The more I wanted to feel him sliding in and out of my backdoor. 

“What if I don’t do anal? Not every hooker let’s johns have their asses.” 

He must have seen in my eyes the answer I wanted, because he gave it to me. “Then I guess that I’ll just have to hold you down and fuck that ass anyway.” He smirked. “Hmmm…I rather think I might like it even better if I take your ass rather than you just giving it to me.” 

“Oh God Aidan, don’t tease me.” I whimpered. 

“I suggest you figure out how to prep yourself tonight so that ass don’t get torn open tomorrow.” He growled. I nodded like a bobble head. “Tessa…your safe word for tomorrow will be snuffalupagus. I’m setting that now because from the second you get in my car, no will be ignored. If you don’t want to keep going, if things hurt more than they feel good…say your safe word and we’ll come out of the play, okay?”

“Snuffalupagus…gotcha.” I nodded. “I’ve gotta go now…I want to figure out how to prep.” 

He smiled. “I need to go take a cold shower. I want to save this load for you tomorrow. I love you Tessa Altman.” 

“I love you too Aidan. See you tomorrow morning…text me when you’re on your way.” I researched for an hour and came up with a plan. I ran down to the kitchen and two cups of hot apple juice later I was experiencing a rectal cleaning that would serve me well the next day. I showered and dug through one of the toys Bubbie Ruth had included in the gift bag she had slipped me when she was here for the gang’s graduation. I found the butt plugs and some lube…I slept with the least comfortable one I could take. The next morning, I woke up at eight, Becah had to be to work at eight and Daddy was due on one of his sites at eight thirty so with Sarah sleeping over with Stacey, I was alone in the house by the time I got out of bed. I showered and primped before I tried to figure out how to look like a whore. I grabbed one of my tank tops from the summer before and cut it off right under by breasts. I dug out a black skirt that I had never worn without a pair of tights and put that on too. I didn’t bother with a bra or with panties. I grabbed a pair of the ridiculously high heels MeDe, Quinn and Santana had taught me to walk in and thought quickly. I put together a ‘Senator’ outfit and put that in a bag to take with me. A nice button down shirt, pull over sweater, knee length pencil skirt, matching jacket, a pair of more sensible heels all went into my back pack. I also tossed in a few of the toys that Bubbie Ruth had given me and all of the massage oils and lubes. Almost as an afterthought I threw in some regular clothes so we didn’t get caught being naughty. I grabbed an older thigh length cardigan to camouflage my hooker wear from the neighbors and went down to grab some breakfast. I kept it light, just some fruit and bacon, just in case I didn’t have time for my food to settle before Aidan was inside of me. 

He texted me at twenty after ten and I gathered everything I needed for the day. I gave it another few minutes then I headed outside and locked up behind me. I had texted Dad and Becah earlier to let them know where I’d be all day, so I was good to go. When Aidan pulled up in his CRV, I walked over as sultrily as possible. He rolled down the passenger window so I leaned in. “You looking for some fun?” 

He nodded, his eyes raking over my mostly bare frame. “Yeah, what kind of fun you offering?” 

I thought quickly. “Depends how much you got to blow.” 

“Let’s just pretend the funds are limitless.” He said with a Tony Stark kind of smirk. “What do you offer?”

“Well let’s just say that I think we can make a deal.” I reasoned as I tossed my bag into the back and climbed into the front seat. It was weird not to have him holding the door open for me. But that was reasonable considering the roles we were playing. As we motored to his house, I continued my ruse. “My billable hours have a going rate of a grand for unlimited access, no anal and permanent injury allowed. Five hundred if we take certain things off the table. One other thing is never on the table…I don’t do animals.”

Aidan had a look of distaste on his face. I had read a multitude of smut online since prom night. It amazed me what all types of kinks were out there. I only took the worst of the possibilities off the table for this scene. I was pretty sure that neither of us would ever want to try something like that. “The puppies and ponies are safe.” He finally answered. “So, ten grand for the entire afternoon…if you are a good girl, you may be looking at a nice tip on top of that.”

I laughed. “I’m good at a lot of things.” Aidan pulled into the garage, and I grabbed my bag and we headed into the house. I completely understood why he was treating me so differently. As his girlfriend, I was a lady and to be treated as such…for this role play I was anything but a lady and he was treating me like someone would treat a whore. I didn’t even want to think about how wet it was making me already. As soon as we got into Aid’s room, he turned to me. 

“Get that sweater off. I want to see exactly what ten grand is buying me.” He growled. I took it off my shoulders and let it slide to the floor. “Nice. I love a red head…always so fucking fiery. Don’t suppose that you’re a natural one?”

“Born and bred.” I assured him with a grin.

He came over and pulled me away from the door so he could walk around looking at me. “Nice tits, perky, firm. Could be bigger.” He pulled my cropped tank top off and teased my nipples with his fingers. “Nice and sensitive nipples.” He critiqued. “I can have a lot of fun with these puppies.” He leaned forward and licked a very sensitive nipple, before capturing it between his teeth. 

“Fuck.” I hissed. I was used to a kinder, gentler Aidan. This ‘playboy’ didn’t seem to be kind and gentle at all. He was playing it as jaded and world weary. 

He smirked at me. “Gonna have to toughen those titties up if you’re gonna work the streets. Seeing such pretty pink nipples…it’s like they are just begging me to pinch ‘em, bite ‘em, bruise ‘em.” I couldn’t help but shiver. Whether it was fear or want, I wasn’t sure. My skirt was removed next. “Guess the carpet does match the drapes…what little bit of carpet you left…love the hard wood floors. Looks like someone spilled something. The floors are all wet.” He shoved a finger into me while dragging a thumb over my clit. I was so close to the edge that just that little bit was enough of a shove. I cried out as an orgasm rocked through me. “Fuck yeah…I didn’t think working girls got off for shit. Maybe you’re one of those whores who fuck so much they decide to make a career out of it.” Thankfully despite his words and attitude being in line with the role play, Aidan held me up until my knees stopped shaking. 

Once my breathing was under control, I tried to get back into my character. “Maybe you’re just that sexy, Honey. Couldn’t help myself.” 

Aidan’s face smirked again. “Well you’ve stroked my ego…now it’s time to do some stroking of a different kind.” He picked me up and carried me to the bed. A condom was found and put on his dick. In one long stroke he impaled my pussy. I mean no prep, no little thrusts until I got used to him…nope just straight to fucking me hard and fast. I screamed and came over and over and over again. “Fuck yeah. Cum on my dick you sexy little whore.” He growled and kept fucking me. His mouth found my neck and he started biting and sucking hard. He didn’t leave any hickies on my neck or upper shoulders, but when he reached my chest he went out of his way to mark me as deeply as he could. He made sure to bruise my tits as much as he could. He bit, he pinched, he pulled and he sucked until they felt like they wanted to run away from him. I might have complained but the simple truth was that I was cumming the entire time. Suddenly he pulled his cock out of me, the movement was so sudden, I couldn’t help but cum again.   
Aidan roughly turned me onto my belly. He grabbed my hands and used a pillowcase to tie them behind my back. Leaning close to my ear he whispered darkly, “for ten grand, your ass is mine.” 

I struggled. I tried to hunch him off of me. I wiggled and tried to get away. I begged him not to. I said no and told him it would be rape. He just laughed and held me down until he got me tied to the bed. I was so wet I could feel my juices running out of me and down my belly. Aidan took my ass. There is no other way to describe it. He got his condom clad dick in my running over font of moisture and then pressed himself into my ass. In the spirit of the game I tried to keep him out, I pushed back but it only served to let him enter me faster. We both grunted as the head of his dick got past my rectum. “Fuck yeah…that’s a nice tight ass.” He moaned. 

He started jackhammering his way deeper and deeper. I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think. All I could do was beg. I didn’t even try to convince myself I was doing anything but begging for more. He gave it to me. He pulled out and yanked off the condom before shoving his dick back into my ass. “Oh Holy Mother of GOD!!!” A few pumps of his hips later and he joined me in an orgasm so intense I think we both blacked out. When I came to, Aidan was back on top of me though my hands and feet were free. I knew we were out of the roles because he was kissing and caressing me, slowly, gently. “Oh God, Aidan, that was so very, very intense.” 

“It was.” He groaned against my skin. I shivered. “I am already close to cumming again. It was that hot and fucking awesome.” I smiled and shifted on the bed until I could take him into my mouth. “Shit Tessa.” He growled. I could tell that he hadn’t done more than get rid of the condom. I could smell my ass on him and, sick I might have been, but I fucking loved it. I didn’t release his dick form my mouth until he was soft. Then I grabbed my toothbrush that we kept hidden in his nightstand, my bag from right inside his door and went to his and Evan’s bathroom, brushed my teeth, pooped and took a quick shower. I pulled on my ‘senator’ outfit and shot Aidan a text to let him know he could shower and transform into the ‘intern’.   
While he did that, I ran down to the kitchen and made us some lunch. I was starving and it was already after one. He came down, freshly showered wearing khakis and a white dress shirt. 

“Thank you for making us lunch. We could have done it together.”

I laughed. “Its sandwiches and fruit…I didn’t roast the fatted calf. Besides the sooner we eat the sooner we can get back to your room. It’s my turn to have the control. Your safe word for this play is hippogriff.” 

“Hell yeah. I’ve gotta say Baby…fucking your ass was the most awesome thing ever, but after your turn, I’m gonna lay you on that bed and make slow sweet love to you.” Aidan looked at me his eyes fully and intensely staring me down. 

I nodded. “You always want to end that way.” We had not gotten to have tons of time alone since Prom night. But whenever we had had enough time to try one of our fantasies, Aidan always made sure that we took the time to make love after our naughty time. 

He nodded. “We need that time to reconnect as just the two of us. To make sure that our love is strong enough that our play never deteriorates it.” 

“I know. I love that about you…most guys our age would just be happy for all the kinky, nasty sex. But not you.” 

“Course not. You’re my lady…I have to take care of you make sure you know that.” He said taking my hand. Touching each other seemed to reignite the flames inside us both. We hurried and finished our lunch and returned to the safety of Aidan’s room. When the door closed behind us, Aidan went immediately into his role. “You wanted to see me Senator Altman?”

“Mr. Harding. Yes. I would like to ask you how did a personal inner office document find its way into the hands of a Fox News reporter?” 

He looked at his feet. “I took it home with me to read it because I didn’t have time to do so before I had to leave for the day, and my ex-girlfriend came over to get the last of her things…when she left it was gone I searched for it and when I couldn’t find it, I called Mr. Evans to let him know, but she had already passed it to her boss.” 

“I see.” I said trying to sound authoritative. “Mr. Evans has been dealt with. He should have brought the breach to me as soon as he knew of it. However, you were the one to take the memo from the offices. Since this is the first misstep you have made and my constituency seems to agree with me on the salient points released, your internship will not be terminated. But we cannot allow such a travesty to go unpunished.” 

“Yes Ma’am…I’ll take what every punishment you feel I deserve.” He said humbly.   
I smirked. “I was so hoping that you’d say that.” I turned to his closet and pulled a thick belt from his organizer. “Drop your trousers and underpants. I believe the five licks will be sufficient.” 

His eyes grew round. “Licks?” he asked with a big gulp. 

“Yes. Five of them. And you are to count them out. Now get moving, I do have other meetings this after noon.” Aidan nodded. Without further comment, he unbuckled his pants and allowed his pants to drop to the floor. He hooked his thumbs in his boxer briefs; he turned and bent over taking them all the way to the floor. I walked forward and pulled back with the belt. When it connected, Aidan yelped out one. We went on in that vein until he reached five. Then I rubbed my hand over the heated, pinkened flesh. “You may stand Mr. Harding.” He stood upright revealing a completely hard erection. “My, my…you seemed to enjoy being disciplined. Nice size, good girth…very nice indeed.” I murmured slowly stroking him loving the feeling of his velvet over steel length. I wiggled my skirt up and sat down on the bed. I find that I enjoyed turning your ass pink as much as you enjoyed receiving it. Be a dear and give me a nice cleaning…your tongue should do nicely.”

Aidan moved so fast he almost blurred. I couldn’t maintain my hardened exterior as he went down on me. Soon I was writhing and moaning under his mouth and hands. Only after he had wrested screams from me five times, did he allow me to calm down and resume my role. “Is there anything else I can do for you Ma’am?” 

“Yes, lay on your back on the ‘desk’.” I gestured to the bed so there would be no confusion. Aidan quickly got rid of the rest of his clothes and took his place in the middle of the bed as I’d indicated. I sheathed him in latex and rode him like Zorro until I had come so much I couldn’t move any more. Then he took over, moving me up and down on his dick until he flooded the condom. We played for a little while further, then Aidan and I reconnected, making love until around five. We showered again and got dressed in normal clothes then went out to eat. Santana called me to ask if I wanted to ride with them the next afternoon to head to the mall and scope the job scene there. We agreed. 

I managed to find a job the very first day. Apparently Ohio schools no longer taught simple things like genre and alphabetical order and one of their new ‘book sellers’ was putting The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, right next to a three book set from Stephen King. I couldn’t even fathom the stupidity that led to that dumbass move. So I may have yelled at him and called him an idiot. I drew the attention of the manager and left the store with the moron’s job. I made nine bucks an hour, got a twenty percent discount and I was lucky enough to make full time for the summer. Aidan ended up at a sporting goods store, for him the money was nice, but the best part was that he was getting all his football stuff at twenty percent off. Our summer was set. By asking for weekdays off, Aidan and I were able to spend a lot of time together. It seemed like before I knew it, it was time for Devon and Tonya’s wedding. The summer of loving was well underway and I was enjoying it way more than I’d have ever thought possible.


	3. Takin’ Care of Business (Bachman Turner Overdrive) & She’s A Beauty (the Tubes)

Chapter 3  
Takin’ Care of Business (Bachman Turner Overdrive)  
Benton Point of View

Life has been a lot different than I thought it would be literally almost a year ago to the very day. I thought that Danica and I would be spending most of the summer stockpiling time with our daughter as she prepared for college. I did, however, know that we’d be doing so in concurrence with Gabbie and Sander spending time with Sam and Becah with Puck. I was no longer dreading having an empty nest after MeDe left for college. Sander and Gabbie didn’t know it, but from the moment they had moved in with us, I knew that I wasn’t letting them go until Devon and Tonya gave us grandbabies. That house was entirely too big for just me and Dani and there was no way I was getting hosed in the resale we would need for us to downsize. Devon, Kevon and Mercedes all grew to hate this town by the time MeDe graduated. Kev and Dev had not had anywhere near as hard a time as Mercedes had, but they loved their little sister with all their hearts. The sizism and racism that she had faced had soured them on this town. Those facts and feelings meant that none of our older children would want the house as a gift in the near future.

I shook off the thoughts of the past to focus on the present. At present, Mercedes was no longer my youngest child nor was she my only daughter. Dani and I had two new beautiful daughters to raise, and Gabbie and Sanders’ continued presence became even more of a necessity. With the Evans family there, there were four adults and four children…somehow that made me feel a lot better about being a new parent again at my age. I knew that eventually Sander and Gabbie would again want a place of their own, but I was determined to hold that day off as long as possible. Shaking my head with a sigh, I considered the fact that sometimes being a good parent meant putting what was best for your child ahead of what you wanted. I knew that and I lived by that creed, but I still hated the fact that I wouldn’t have this last summer to spoil my eldest daughter.

Before she had found her loves, I had planned to spend this summer in Europe touring the continent as a family before she had to come back for freshman year. I spent her entire high school career saving up for the trip. Instead, I decided to put that money towards a two week stay in the Caribbean for Devon and Tonya for their honeymoon. I had shifted some into the two new college funds for Amara and Amaea. I was using some to put down on Tessa’s car. I had also managed to slip Lester some for the wedding, not a lot; after all the man had his shit together and his pride. Unfortunately Lester’s student loans had kicked his ass so I wanted to help him and Nichole as much as they would allow. We had been fortunate. Dani and I had gotten scholarships out the ass, so we’d not had very much student loan debt…we’d had a fifteen year mortgage and paid it off…Devon and Kevon had both done well enough in school and in sports to not need much help for their tuition or room and board. After they each graduated college we’d given them the rest of their college fund to use as they pleased. I know that Devon used most of his for his doctorate program. He had actually done a dual degree program that saw him graduating with his master’s and bachelor’s degrees in Public Administration the same time his brother graduated with his BS in computer engineering. Kevon’s was probably going towards starting his program management masters.

My mind rolled from my sons, back to my Mercedes. Even after MeDe, Sam and Noah got together, I didn’t think it would lead to all that has spawned from it. I remember thinking after their first date that I was going to end up catching a case over two little white boys trying to live out their chocolate fantasies with my little girl. Then after I talked to those two and saw the love for my little girl already bright and shining in their eyes…a lot of people would have said it couldn’t last…that they were too young to know what love really is. But I knew. I had seen that same look on my face when I was even younger than them…scared the hell out of me at the time, but that didn’t make it any less real, any less true. I’d assumed that okay; my daughter has found her forever with these two guys. Better get to know them. Better become friends with their parents like my dad had done with Dani’s.

I never expected getting to know the In-Laws to have turned into friendships so strong I sometimes wonder where they have been all my life. I never realized it would give my wife the mother /big sister figure she’d always wanted. I, certainly, never at all foresaw that it would lead me to where I sat that Wednesday morning. Will Anderson had been kind enough to lend us one of his conference rooms for the very first board meeting of Amicitiae Amore. He was also kind enough to run the meeting since the rest of us had no clue what the hell we were doing. Gabbie had shown up with coffee, bagels and fruit. Sander came bearing a good selection of breakfast meats. “Is that why you wanted to drive separately?” she laughed.

“I do have to go the opposite direction from you after we leave here.” He defended. “Besides, I don’t care what you women say…a breakfast isn’t a breakfast without bacon. Thankfully the gentleman who runs the deli department at Whole Foods just happens to agree with me.” He added his offerings to the buffet his wife was setting up.

Will’s conference room was pretty state of the art. We skyped in Mills and Francesca fairly easily, they had joined our corporation as a subsidiary because it allowed the two of them to get their insurance needs met at a drastically reduced rate. We didn’t mind because we needed their insight and knowledge with the kids in their city. “Alright, since we’re less formal than your traditional board of directors, I’d love it if we could do away with the very rigid ideal of parliamentary procedure.”

“I’ll second that.” I said quickly.

“Good.” Will continued. “We’ll agree to vote when things need voting but otherwise when something has been seconded, just speak up if you disagree.” We all agreed that that worked for us. “Alright, now we’re going to leave the signatories as is…currently Benton, Danica, Burt, and Carole are our listed as our signatories, with Antwan Berry serving as our legal counsel. Three of the five must be present for everything to be on the up and up. Anyone want to change that…please remember this means that you might be called upon to fly to Manhattan at a moment’s notice if something goes wrong.” No one wanted the job once they realized that they could be called on to rush to Harlem in a New York minute. “The designated signatories stand as is.” Will pressed forward. “Moving on, now we have incorporated as an umbrella corporation with subsidiaries as listed on the sheet before you. That had an unexpected side effect. When you add together each of the small businesses represented here, according to Gwen, we’re now eligible to be taxed at a slightly higher rate but with access to far more of the tax credits and breaks for medium to larger businesses. Each of the smaller businesses quarterly taxes and the property taxes on the Harlem house should actually come in far below our current estimates.”

“That’s true.” Gwen told the rest of the assembled parents. “Amicitiae Amore now holds small, two percent only, pieces of the six subsidiaries, except Puckerman Pool Cleaning, which Noah has turned over to the corporation making him a nominal figurehead but one who retains a controlling interest. Becah’s plan is to get it back up and running within the next few weeks, staffed by McKinley students looking for summer work. Joe Hart and Jake…around his diner schedule…are currently the only two employees. That being said Gwen Abrams Accounting, Altman Home Services & Carpentry, Hummel Auto Repair. Jones Family Dentistry and Mills & Jarrard Realty can all look to reap ten to fourteen percent off their tax bill next quarter.”

“We definitely appreciate it.” Francesca quipped. They had really only decided to ask if they could join the corporation because neither woman had insurance…and while Mills could have been added to Saul’s easily enough, she didn’t want to leave her friend without. Mills had been talking about getting their own health insurance as part of their company with Danica and she had pointed out that the duo could join in with the newly formed umbrella corporation without too much trouble and get health care through the group policy Amicitiae Amore had held for years before the new name and purpose.”

Will nodded. “Speaking of our new purpose… Mills, Francesca, what can you tell us about the progress of the house?” he segued looking at his list. He was jumping a few things, but this was what we were all really there for anyway.

Mills and Francesca exchanged looks. “Frannie can tell you that. She and Neil were just over there yesterday.”

I couldn’t hide my smirk. I had met Neil Mayzer when he came to Ohio for Noah’s graduation. He was Ruth’s nephew, Saul and Becah’s first cousin. Saul had set him up with Francesca, and the duo immediately hit it off. For some reason that translated to Neil becoming a lot more involved with Noah and taking a very large interest in the house building process. Though to be real it wouldn’t be a bad investment for the guy. He could build one at the middle range and have four   
rental properties that would bring a lot of extra capital. I might have Saul point that out to the guy. If he’s gonna date Francesca Jarrard long term, he’ll probably end up needing it. “Currently the build is technically on schedule. The foreman told me they were about twelve hours behind where they would like to be but the exterior, all the duct work, piping and wiring is done…not just electrical, but the cable and internet and sound and security systems wires were all completely run too. The elevator has been installed and it supposedly works as it is supposed to. I haven’t ridden in it myself to know for sure. George, I talked to your friend Shawn Morren. He’s been great about checking in on the build. He told me to let you know that they got the building envelop perfectly tight-sealed completely- and the closed cell spray insulation is a just little too thick but it is nice and uniform. He also said the firewalls are damn near perfect. The builder went with the fire resistant drywall all around the kitchens, and used moisture resistant everywhere else except they used the soundproof drywall between the bedrooms and in between each separate unit. Cement board in the showers and bathroom floors and such. They finished all of that on Monday.”

“To be honest…it’s finally starting to look like a house both inside and out.” Mills chimed in.

Francesca agreed. “Today they started with the wood work, all the crown moldings and banisters and such. That is supposed to be complete before the fourth…then the priming and painting start the week thereafter. The foreman is a little worried about getting behind after the holiday since the Monday after a holiday weekend is always hard to get people back to work, but he is hopeful they can get ahead before they take off. Either way, we have a soft completion date of July thirty-first and a hard ‘has to be completed by’ date of August ninth.” She finished up.

“That’s perfect.” Will said with a smile. “I spoke with Mr. Santos at Rangeman and he said that if we give them the kids move in date ahead of time, they can go live on the system the night before and have a representative there to train the kids on it.”

“Wow…is that normal?” Danica asked. She had been overjoyed to leave the babies with Tessa and Triple S and be able to get out of the house that morning. She did have something to report, but she’d have come even if she didn’t. She needed the ‘adult conversation’.

“Not exactly unheard of, nor is it a particularly common practice.” Analyn told us honestly. “Mr. Santos said that they found that teaching their clients how to use the system face to face rather than just tossing them an instructions manual save manpower and money later.”

Gwen and Gabbie both took meticulous notes but it was the blonde woman who spoke up next. “I would like to raise a point. Since the kids will be so far from us if something bad happens, I thought it would be prudent to bring forward a motion that we give Ruth, Mills and Saul limited medical power of attorney. That way, heaven forbid, if one of them is in a car accident or something, they won’t have to wait until we can get there to be treated.” We all exchanged looks. That was something none of the rest of us had really thought of. She pulled a copy of a form from the back of her portfolio. “We just fill this out and scan it in. Mills, Ruth, and Saul wouldn’t even need a hard copy…they just save the file on their iPad or phone…heck we could even give a copy to Neil just encase they were taken to his hospital.”

“That’s a great idea.” Carole spoke up. “I have to admit that the nurse in me was a little worried about that.” Okay, maybe I was the only one who hadn’t considered the medical needs the kids might face.

We moved on that and Mills said it wasn’t a problem for her and she knew Saul and Ruth would feel the same way. “The next thing we should discuss is the household expenses. I know that we are paying them for the kids, but I would like to rearrange things so we are really looking at two different sets of bills…those that we put on a direct pay system and those that we should have the children pay so that they learn to do so and get used to paying bills.” George brought to the floor. “One of the most important things I learned at college was making sure that my bills were paid and paid on time.”

Danica looked thoughtful. “We’re going to pay the house note, insurance and big utilities, correct?” Gwen affirmed that those were the ones we were set to pay. “Well, they will still have their cell phones and MeDe’s car insurance…plus they will need to budget for groceries. I mean, we’ll make sure that they have enough to get what they need, but George is right…they definitely need to know the process and maybe even the consequences of paying bills.”

We talked through that one and it was decided that when MeDe, Sam and Noah were back in Lima at the end of July we’d see about getting all eight of the kids on separate cell plans so they could each shoulder that responsibility. But we also decided that car insurance was a bit too vital and important to leave to teenagers in their first year on their own. Tessa might be being told that she had to earn the money for her insurance, but really she would be reimbursing what was already paid…and I was willing to bet whatever money she gave George and Becah ended up in her college account anyway. We talked about making sure that they each had copies of their insurance cards, which led to discussions of doctors’ appointments. Carol agreed to manage making sure that all eight of the kids had the needed immunizations and such. She was also going to work with each family to get a copy of the kids medical files and have them scanned just in case they were ever needed. We went over what the kids had gotten for graduation and what would still be needed before they moved in. There actually wasn’t that much left over. The meeting was thorough but with us having even just the rough agenda we did have, we were able to talk through everything and we were out by ten thirty. 

Rather than immediately take Danica home, I kidnapped her and took her to the office with me until lunch time. Tessa wasn’t due at the bookstore until one, so I took some time to make sure that Danica remembered why she loved being a dentist so much. Then, before we left, Dani took some time in her office to remind me why I love her…especially that sexy mouth of hers. We headed out, both of us wearing big ass grins. It may not be going exactly the same way I thought it would be at that stage of the game…but it sure as hell wasn’t bad.

 

She’s A Beauty (the Tubes)  
Mercedes Point of View

The last week of filming in Chicago was packed. I was on set by seven every day and was lucky if I got home by nine that night. Sam and Noah were working everyday as well, but it turns out catalogue and print work had much more rigid hours. They’d only had one outside shoot and only one late night one. They were definitely the lucky ones. We were doing night time exterior shots that were supposed to take place in the later fall. So I was out in hot Chicago summer nights in sweaters and jeans, trying not to sweat too much. Thinking cool thoughts didn’t help worth a damn. Thankfully the Wietz brother running the filming that night decided that there should be wind. Big ass fans were brought in and the breezes made the rest of the shoot go a lot easier. I didn’t make it home until almost five in the morning, but my loves had left me dinner on a plate in the refrigerator and when I climbed into bed Sam roused, woke Puck and they made love to me.

It was pretty exhausting, but we managed to get all the shots we needed done and wrapped up that half of filming Thursday night. That was great. By the time I got back to the room, Sam and Noah had done our laundry and put the room back in its original condition. Together we packed all our stuff up and headed to bed pretty early. Since the schedule change gave me Friday morning off instead of us having to leave at noon, we were able to wake up and make slow leisurely love. Then we showered and took the rest of our stuff down to the Tahoe, Puck had brought over from ‘our’ parking space. Once all of our stuff was stowed, we’d only had to buy two extra suitcases to get our new stuff home; I ran back in and checked us out.

Sam got to pick where we stopped for breakfast, so we hit a little place called Little Goat that wasn’t actually little at all. It was a gourmet diner. I had the shrimp and cheesy grits and they were totally amazing. Puck had been a little worried about both me and Sam and our eating habits over the last few weeks. He didn’t think we knew but it was pretty easy to see his relief every time we ate ‘normally’. He of course, had to go all out and get the ‘Fat Elvis’ Waffles which were thick ass Belgium waffles served with banana slices, peanut butter infused butter and bacon infused maple syrup. Sam chose to go with the spinach omelet and enough bacon to have satisfied Quinn even back when she was pregnant with Beth. We left there and hopped right on I-fifty five.

The car ride was pretty cool, but rather than singing along with a playlist or the radio, Puck strummed his guitar and we tried to finish up some of the songwriting we’d been working on. We had three songs we were pretty happy with, but a debut album needed fifteen to twenty. Somehow Sam talked me into revisiting Hell to the No. so we worked on that one for a while until I finally felt it was ‘company ready’. Since Puck wasn’t driving the four hour drive was actually a four hour ride, and we got home around twelve thirty. That gave us about two hours to repack and chill with the family until we had to leave for the airport. We picked Jake up on the way to the airport. His mom still had some issues with him going to Florida, but Mom had managed to get her to let him go. Mom played the ‘he needs to bond with his siblings’ angle, and she finally got the permission we needed for it not to be kidnapping, because he was so going with us. Santana swears that there is something really sketchy about her. Sam agrees, but I haven’t been able to talk to her one on one so I could see what vibes I got off of her. One thing we all agree on is that the broad had a real hard on for taken men and that alone put her on the ‘watch list’ for us.

The Dads rented three eight passenger vans and a trailer to get all of us; the seven Joneses, the five Evans, the four Puckermans, the two Altmans, the five Neelys, and the four Fosters and all of our luggage down to the airport in Dayton. We flew into Jacksonville Florida and piled into three more vans, but this time, since the ride was a lot shorter, we just put the luggage in the vans with us. Less than thirty minutes after loading up we arrived at the resort. About half of Devon and Tonya’s other guests arrived that night. After taking our things up to our rooms, and in many cases making sure that our dresses for the wedding were sent to the resort’s drycleaners for steaming, we all met up and rode from Amelia Island into Fernandina Beach and hit a great seafood place right on the waterfront called, aptly enough, Marina’s Restaurant.

I ordered the seafood platter which had fried shrimp, whiting, deviled crab and clam. I have never had shrimp that sweet in my entire life, and I was no novice to Florida seafood…but they were amazing. I even liked the Cole Slaw. Sam got the soft shell crab sandwich with fries and some cool roumalade sauce. The hushpuppies that came with our meals were so good I almost wanted to see if I could get an order to go. We were all full as hell when we got back into our rooms. Sam, Noah and I shared what they called a premier oceanfront room with a king bed. The sheets were amazing. And our lovemaking was beautifully long and slow and playful. The next morning we woke up and drove up the coast to St. Simons Island Georgia and we visited Fort Frederica, an archaeological preserve of the remnants of a fort and town built by James Oglethorpe between 1736 and 1748 to protect the southern boundary of the British colony of Georgia from Spanish raids. On the way back down we took a tour of Orange Hall --a really haunted old plantation house in a little town that had been founded by the French before St. Augustine, but didn’t have the continuity that the more famous city did. We had lunch in Jacksonville and then drove down and spent the afternoon touring St. Augustine. 

We had to be back for the big family dinner. Tonya and Devon knew that everyone would be eating all the seafood they could all weekend so for their big ‘Welcome to Our Wedding’ dinner they elected to rent out a smallish pizza place called Moon River Pizza. The pizza was New York style and it was some of the best I’d ever had. Bubbie, Saul and Mills had arrived while we were all sight-seeing, so we got to talk with them a little during the dinner. Mills had a shitload of pictures from the house…it was really starting to look real. After the dinner, where I got to meet Tonya’s grandmothers -neither of her grandfathers were still alive- and several of her uncles and cousins, we hit SprawlMart to grab a few things that we needed for the next day’s rehearsal and the dinner that would follow as well as grabbing some stuff for the wedding Monday. We also got everything we would need for the day we were all planning to spend at the beach on Tuesday. Most of the girls couldn’t go before the wedding, because of our hair. It was hell being that close and smelling the ocean air and not going to play in the waves, but I wasn’t ruining my big brother’s day with a fucked up weave.

Tonya, Patrice and the over twenty one/under thirty five girls went out Saturday night while Devon was taken out by Kevon and the same demographic of the male cousins. And, in a move that showed exactly how perfect they are for each other, they all ended up at the same place. For the ‘We Can’t Club’ crowd, they set up the Heron room on the first floor as a movie theatre. Rather than uncomfortable folding chairs, however, they had loveseats and couches and arm chairs. In the front, closer to the projection screen was an area where you could chill on the floor with blankets they provided. It was a pretty cool set up. Sam, Puck and I grabbed a couch in the back and cuddled up under a blanket. The night started at seven with a showing of Oz: the Great and Powerful. They followed that family movie with another, Jack the Giant Slayer. At ten almost all of the little kids were taken up to bed and a potty and snack break was taken by most every one of us. At ten thirty they started A Good Day to Die Hard. It may never win any awards, but it was definitely not one of those ‘well there went two hours of my life I’m never getting back’ kind of movies. There were hot guys, and yes I still count Bruce Willis, there were massive amounts of explosions, shoot outs and fights.

When we got back to the room, Sam and Noah were still so pumped from the action packed movie; we didn’t get to sleep until almost eight the next morning. There were moments when I really wondered if Puck and I were going to be able to sing for Devon and Tonya as they had asked. The rehearsal was held in the ‘contingency’ venue. Apparently when having a beach wedding somewhere ‘where the weather was a living force as changeable as a woman’s heart’…I swear that was a direct quote from the flame haired, gayer than Kurt wedding planner the hotel had assigned Tonya…you always need a backup plan. The resort’s Walker’s Landing was that backup plan. It was an octagonal building with hardwood floors and a gorgeous stone fireplace. It had marsh views coming through the windows that encompassed almost all the walls. The room itself was so beautiful that it didn’t need decorations. In fact any decorations would have taken away from the room’s natural beauty. We ran through the program twice. It was simple and perfectly them. For the processional Sam and Noah sang an amazing rendition of ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love with You’ as Theo and Walter lead in the grandmothers. Tonya had Bubbie Ruth lead with Grandma Mae since she was our only surviving grandmother. I could tell that Bubbie really appreciated the honor.

The bridesmaids, including myself, came in to a Boston Pops Symphony Orchestra version of the theme from Star Trek the Next Generation. Tonya did come in to Wagner’s Bridal March though. We were all dressed nicely in sundresses and khakis and button down shirts, and Tonya had chosen to wear a white sundress, so it was a very pretty moment in the run through. We ran through the rest of the program and then practiced the processional and recessional twice then we headed to the rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal dinner was held in the Veranda Seafood Restaurant at the resort. The restaurant’s outdoor dining area looked out on the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean. The dinner was small and intimate. Just the parents, grandparents, siblings and any associated significant others. We were all on the veranda in the summer, ocean breeze and it was truly a beautiful night. Dinner was served ‘family style’. Every section of the table got to choose from three appetizers, jumbo shrimp cocktail with Zatarain’s cocktail sauce, fried green tomatoes served with a strangely delicious hot sauce vinaigrette, and jumbo lump crab cakes that came with bread & butter pickles and some really great remoulade. The adults got to choose from pitchers of cocktails and we under twenty one folk got to pick from the full line of Coca-Cola products. The salad was actually a little disappointing, it was almost like someone had gone to the supermarket and bought a whole bunch of bag salads and tossed them together. But the thing about salads was that in a place like that, you skipped it in favor of the entrée anyway.

The entrée was almost awe inspiring. In the ‘family style’ vein, they brought out platters of sides first. Three large platters of each; sea salt fries , grilled Amelia farmers market vegetables, Carolina gold rice, whipped potatoes, Anson Mills grits, southern coleslaw, and sweet corn succotash; were distributed around the large table so all the choices were in reach of everyone. Then they brought out platters of fried shrimp, grilled shrimp on kabobs, cedar plank grilled salmon, steak tenderloins and roasted chicken. The last thing the waiters did was bring out a huge selection of condiments, everything from A-1 Sauce to Zatarains cocktail sauce. There was literally enough food that you could have a sample of everything. That is exactly what Sam, Puck, Kev, Dev, the dads and all the rest of the men at the table did. Most of the ladies stuck with the salmon or shrimp. Unfortunately for my mom, as long as she is breastfeeding, she plans to avoid shellfish…she read an article that said it could be leading to the escalating numbers of allergies in children. I think that is bullshit, but she still stuck to the steak and salmon. Once every one had served themselves, the speeches and toasts started.

Daddy stood up first. “Good evening family and friends. As all you know, we’re here to celebrate the coming together in wedded bliss of my eldest son Devon Lucas Jones and the love of his life, Tonya Olivia Neely. My family has been very blessed in that we usually find our ‘one in five billion’ pretty early on in life. I met the girl who would grow into the woman who became my wife when I was fourteen years old. My oldest child managed to beat me by a year and a half. When he first came home with a friendly, tall little, colt legged, brown skinned girl he introduced as Tonya -his partner for a science fair project- they were in sixth grade. At one point while they were at the kitchen table working, something went wrong. Tonya got doused with ice water when a very nervous Devon was trying to be a gentleman and open it for her…she let loose with a string of Klingon expletives that was so long and comprehensive that I couldn’t even say a word. I looked over at my son to gauge his reaction, and I knew he had just fallen so totally in love with her that he would never be the same again. Since that day over a decade before, I’ve watched these two become one bonding more and more and more every day. Now, I have to tell you, Tonya…you are exactly what an old sci-fi nerd like me has always wanted in a daughter in law…Thank you for making my son so very happy. Ladies and gentlemen…let’s all raise our glasses in wishing these two even more happiness than my own wonderful marriage has brought to me. So here is a toast to lying, cheating, stealing, and drinking: If you must lie, lie with each other. If you must cheat, may you cheat death. If you must steal, steal your lover’s heart. If you drink, drink deeply of the joy of your new life together.”

The Best Man and Maid of Honor would give their toasts at the reception. The rehearsal dinner seemed to be the time for the parents and siblings to tell embarrassing stories of the bride and groom. As I listened to Mr. Lester talk about his daughter a song entered my head. When everyone was looking at me like it was my turn or I was otherwise expected to say something I sighed, “I will be so very honest…I have no idea what to say. I will say, Tonya, listening to your dad and his story about how you’d professed that you were gonna marry him when you got older after he fixed your skinned knee when he was teaching you to ride your first big girl bike brought to mind a song…of course.”

“Well then sing it.” Tonya said happily. “You know I love to hear you sing MeDe.”

“I guess I’d better warn you, if I weren’t with Sam, I’d have never heard this song…it is country.”

“Ohhh…is it that Chuck Wicks song?” Patrice asked quietly. She had always loved country music, and was fully the reason for my no longer very hidden Reba addiction.

I simply nodded and launched into ‘Stealing Cinderella’. By the end of the first verse Lester had come around the table and pulled Tonya to her feet. It was beautiful watching them dancing to the song enjoying the last few hours that she would belong solely to her dad. Sam and Noah both joined me in singing the chorus. Something told me that they, like Devon, probably understood the song’s sentiment in a way that I never would. The song’s end was heralded with many applause and lots of cheek wiping.

When the waiters returned, they cleared the dinner and salad dishes and brought out three whole, big key lime pies, six regular sized pecan pies and three regular sized porcelain dishes of peach cobbler, one of which Sam claimed as his own. Sam allowed Puck and I one small spoon each to show us that he did, in fact love us, then we pouted so he gave us another with the same admonition. “Now, you can never say that I don’t love you.”

We played that game until the dessert was gone. Then Puck grabbed a couple of pieces of Pecan Pie and we played the game all over again. It was wonderful. In moments like those I truly understood that while love making was an expression of our intimacy, it was fun little interactions like that that really showed it among a couple or trio like ourselves to those on the side looking in. That night when we made love, expressing our love before taking our rest. Morning would come early and we were going to show my brother and brand new sister-in-law how much we loved them as all our family came together to witness their vows.


	4. Do You Remember (Jack Johnson) & Love and Marriage (Frank Sinatra)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam/Mercedes/Puck, Devon/Tonya

Chapter 4  
Do You Remember (Jack Johnson)

Tonya Point of View

A woman’s wedding day is supposed to be one of the most memorable days of her entire life. What no one tells little girls as they are dreaming about being a bride, is how crazy busy they are that day and for quite a few days before hand. I had a theory that it was even worse when you were doing a traditional wedding. Thankfully that thought would ever remain just a theory for me. The whole destination wedding thing meant that we had fewer guests to worry about and less of the planning. But there were still many things we had to take care of. When we arrived Friday evening, I met with Trent, the wedding planner that the hotel had assigned us. He and I had been emailing back and forth for the last month, so we only had to go over some of the very small little details. Trent had been amazing. Last month I had sent him a sketch of an idea I wanted to use for the favors. A week later he had sent me a cute little metal key chain that had our initials superimposed over two orange blossoms, on the other side was the date of the wedding and Devon and my wedding quote. “How hollow is the sound of victory without someone to share it with?” Best of all, Trent even went so far as to have the engravers engrave the sentiment in both English and the original Klingon.

The morning of my wedding, which was actually a pretty weird thought because Dev and I have been married in our hearts for a long ass time. I mean we gifted each other with our virginities when we were sixteen, from that moment forward I’ve considered him my husband and myself his wife. So much so that it had been strange not sleeping with him the night before. We had been living together since the end of my lease the year before and it was strange not waking up in Devon’s arms. But upon our arrival, Devon had been directed to his parent’s two bed room suite and I was in the honeymoon suite. Walter and Jake had been given the responsibility of making sure that Devon’s luggage made it up here sometime during the reception.

When I woke up that very hot, Monday morning, I had a lot to do, but fortunately for me it was almost all personal stuff, not wedding stuff. First thing I did was touch bases with Trent; we went over the last minute details and handled a few little things that sprung up overnight, like the fact that the kitchens were running low on broccolini and wanted to substitute asparagus instead. Thankfully they were all small little emergencies that were handled quickly without any drama. I showered and put on another cute little white sundress. That may have been my one and only wedding day, but thanks to proms and winter formals and such I definitely knew better than to put on anything that would have to come off over my freshly done hair. I was dressed and in the car with the women of my bridal party including my soon to be mother and the elder of my future sisters-in-law. Amara and Amaea were being watched over by MeDe’s future in-laws because Benton, Kev and Dev were all going with my dad and brothers to the barber.

It had taken me quite a bit of research to find a natural hair salon for black hair in the area. The one I had found, Bamboo Salon in nearby Jacksonville, had a full catalog of natural hair services. Thankfully, upon calling to make the appointments they assured me that they also had a stylist who could do MeDe and my long time best friend Michelle, both of whom usually rocked weaves, up right as well. They also did natural facials, waxing and massages. It was a very good experience. By the time we left my hip length sista-locs were washed, retwisted, curled and dried completely. My face was aglow after what had to be the best facial I have ever had. They started with an aloe and herb scrub and cleanse, followed by a cucumber, egg white and lemon clay mask and then moisturized with an herbal cream that felt amazing. Just before I left, my stylist had me back in her chair and my locs were pulled back in the front in a gorgeous and very complicated kind of half up do. A large bunch of orange blossoms were pinned in place at my left temple. I had chosen a traditional wedding dress, but there was no way I was going to fight with a veil on a beach.

The salon staff was amazing. Very professional and best of all they made sure that all the ladies were finished around the same time, so there wasn’t much waiting on me or me on them. We left the salon and drove fifteen minutes north to Nail Studio and Spa, a nail salon that was owned and operated by one of my friends from an online Star Trek role play guild. I had told her who I was when I called and made the appointment and as her gift to Dev and I, she had all her stations ready and waiting on us when we walked in. I wasn’t really into the whole tips and such, so Darling, yeah that is her real name, gave me a great gel manicure in a very pretty deep gunmetal gray with garnet red swirls overlaying the main color. She also gave me a pedicure. It included a foot massage that almost had me melting out of the massage chair. Finally my toes were painted to match my finger nails. She also did this great thing that was basically an essential oils massage for my hands and feet. After our mani-pedis, Darling joined us for lunch at nearby Buffalo Wild Wings.

We returned to our rooms at the resort and showered and poured ourselves into our lingerie. After my shower before I even reached for my lingerie, I slathered my upper shoulders and neck in my Coach ‘Poppy’ lotion. The rest of myself I moisturized with an unscented Lubriderm that I fell in love with ages ago. Then I turned to the lingerie I had laid out on a towel on the bed. While I won’t lie and say I wasn’t tempted, I didn’t go with a corset and the whole nine yards. Instead I found a pretty strapless bra and tanga panty combination in a slightly ivory lace. The bra came equipped with cutlets that made my slightly modest C-cups look fuller. The panties were adorable and I have to say they made my ass look incredible. I pulled on my white thigh length silk ‘BRIDE’ robe that my mother had given me before we flew down. I had everything ready to get dressed. I was right on time, just a few seconds later there was a knock at my door. Pattie, Michelle and MeDe stood there with the photographer. Looking at them, I was very proud of my selection for their bridesmaids’ dresses.

I had gone with a strapless, satin faced taffeta, A-line, knee length dress with rows of pickups from waist to hem. The color was a deep, rich red and it glowed against all the girls’ skin despite the big differences between Michelle’s ‘so light she freckles’ red bone coloring, Pattie’s darker but still pretty light café-au-lait complexion and MeDe’s chocolate skin tone. The neckline was cut straight across their chest rather than having a sweetheart cut that would work better for Mercedes than for either Pattie or me. Neither Pattie’s fuller Bs, my moderate Cs, nor Missy’s high riding Ds were anything to sneeze at, but when standing next to little sister Mercedes with her huge-ass, if she would actually buy the size she is supposed to, G-H cups, we looked almost flat chested. But the straight cut neckline which began right above the swell of all of our bust worked great. We’d gone shopping together and found some adorable wedges that were dressy enough for the event but wouldn’t leave us trying to break our necks in heels on the sand. Missy, MeDe and Pattie had gotten the thong, strappy sandals in black while I had gone with silver to match my colors. I had bought them each a pair of dangling drop ‘garnet and diamond’ set in white gold earrings from Ebay…they were responsible for any other jewelry they wanted to wear. 

My mother arrived not long thereafter. She and Mama Dani had taken the colors I selected and went shopping themselves. Momma’s dress was a very pretty deep red shantung fit and flare with tailored looking portrait collar and knife edge pleats on the knee length skirt. It also had a matching wide waist cinching belt with a silver and rhinestone buckle. Where Pattie, MeDe, Missy and I had been scared to walk on the beach in heels, Mom was apparently unconcerned with the possible catastrophe. Her silver sandals boasted a ‘modest’ for her anyway three inch heel. At five foot eight, my mother was anything but a short woman, but she lived for heels as much as Mama Dani and MeDe did. Then again my dad was six foot four so she never had to stop wearing her high heels to appease his vanity. Like me, Mom wore her hair natural and the ladies at Bamboo had done a great job with hers as well.

Mama Dani poked her head in and she had my grandmothers, both Daddy’s mom Big Mama and Momma’s mom Gammy Jean, with her. Devon’s tiny little mother was in a softly glowing, gunmetal gray, full-skirted satin dress that fell to just below her knees. It had a bateau neckline on a sleeveless bodice defined with princess seams and a coordinating belt that followed her post babies curves. When she turned around I was almost speechless. The back of the dress had a softly draped neckline that scooped low, adding an element of tasteful allure to what could have been a very matronly dress. Bubbie Ruth and Grandma Mae weren’t far behind. All the women from my side of the family were wearing various shades of deep red while Devon’s mother and grandmothers showed that silver wasn’t just one shade either. Together the mothers and sisters all helped me get ready and the photographer cataloged it all. I wasn’t wearing makeup, not for a beach wedding, but with the facial I really didn’t need any. Bubbie Ruth lined my eyes and applied mascara to make my eyes look huge and beautiful. She lined my lips with a deep, rich brick red lip pencil and then she brushed on a great darker red gloss. I was very much beyond pleased with the result.

My dress was a Legends by Romona Keveza asymmetrical sheath gown in silk chiffon. This sheath gown had a slightly asymmetric neckline with a natural waist in silk chiffon. It was beautiful with a layer of sheer silk chiffon wrapped around the waist that then came up over the bodice and over my shoulder to form my small, chapel length train. Since I was marrying the only man I had ever slept with, I felt that I was close enough to being a virginal bride that I could get away with the whitest white the dress came in. Mom and Big Mama helped me into the dress since they were the only ones tall enough to really assist me. Once I was zipped in by Patrice and Michelle, Mercedes helped me with my shoes. Then they settled me on one of the room’s chairs.

My mother looked at me and smiled even as I saw tears welling up in her eyes. “Now Baby…every bride knows the old nursery rhyme that every bride needs something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. Well your grandmothers called me and asked if we could leave finding all of those things to the four grandmothers. I knew that you would totally eschew the tradition for yourself, but that it would mean everything to you coming from these four women.”

Bubbie Ruth stepped forward as Momma took a seat on the bed. “We aren’t going in order, because I was assigned the Something Blue, but they also said that as the new Grandmom on the block, I had to go first.” She materialized a long slim jewelry box from somewhere. “A friend of mine is a silversmith. She hand crafts jewelry. So I had her make you an anklet, no beach bride is complete without a little bit of ankle bling.” She opened the box and pulled out a gorgeous silver chain anklet with a super complicated shell type swirl that acted as both detail and closure. “To meet the something blue requirement, I had her add the sapphires.” The quarter carat blue stones hung from the chain all the way around its length. “Since you and Devon have been together for twelve years, there are twelve of them. Thank you so much for letting me be a part of your day and including me.” She finished her voice thick with unshed tears.

“How could I not?” I breathed as she went to work fastening the anklet on my right ankle. “From the very first time we met, you included Devon and I as if we were the same as Noah and Sarah. He told me that he never thought he missed having two grandmothers until you came into our lives. He loves Grandma Mae, but you are definitely his other grandmother.” I tried to explain how we felt. “You are one of those people who are just amazingly easy to love, and I am so grateful that God saw fit to bring you into our world.” I stood and drew her into a hug, or maybe she started the hug. I don’t know which.

“And that is why I forked out the extra money for the good waterproof mascara.” Bubbie said with a chuckle.

“Alright…sit down Young ‘Un.” Grammy Jean laughed. “It’s my turn.” She shooed me back to my seat and Bubbie Ruth took her seat on the bed. “Since Ruth did Something Blue, and I have Something Borrowed, I’m claiming next.” She pulled out a ring I recognized far too well. It had been on a chain around her neck since my grandfather’s funeral. It was waiting on the day my eldest male cousin got married. When I was little, Granddaddy Courtney would take it off and let me see if it fit any of my fingers. It never fit anything until I was playing with it at my high school graduation…and found that it fit my right thumb almost perfectly. Granddaddy had died the summer before my sophomore year of college. “You know that your Granddaddy loved giving Devon a hard time…but he said time and time again that that boy was so in love with you it wasn’t even funny. Court thought that Devon Jones was the only man who would ever come close to loving you as much as he, your Grandfather Harland and your daddy did. He and I both knew that this day would come and we never thought that I’d be here alone…physically.” She slid the ring on the only finger it would stay on. “But you’re gonna walk down the aisle with that ring on your thumb so that you never for a moment doubt that he is here watching over you and smilin’ back.”

Of course, that made every woman in the room test the veracity of their mascara’s claims of waterproof-ness. Big Mama popped up next. “Y’all bout to make me start to caterwauling in here and I’ve got too much joy in my soul today to cry.” She pulled out a wide square jewelry box. “Now, I had Something New. I know that Ruth’s anklet is brand spanking too, but just like no one said that you can’t double up and use one thing for two, nobody ever said that you can’t meet the same requirement with two different things.” She opened the box and nestled in the velveteen was a gorgeous pair of diamond earrings. She took one from the backing as she told me about them. “Over Christmas, I was in the mall and I happened to see a sale at Zales that was just outrageous. These are almost a whole carat of diamonds all together; they are set in an infinity symbol which I thought was appropriate since that’s how long your love is gonna last. Plus in the middle of the bottom part of the symbol is a whole slew of more diamonds.” She deftly affixed the other earring to my empty ear. “They are perfect and I figured that me just happening to see them for half off meant they were meant for you. Granted Big Mama had to convince some stupid little trophy wife that they were meant for my granddaughter, but it didn’t take much to make her see things my way.” That was perfect. It drew laughter from all of us. 

“Well, guess we saved the best for last.” Grandma Mae teased as she stood and came over to me. “When my grandson was twelve he had only two things he talked about all the time, Star Trek: The Next Generation, you see his Dad had gotten the whole series on DVD for him, and Tonya Neely, the little girl who could quote more lines from the show than anyone else he knew could and best of all she knew how to speak Klingon. That summer the whole family spent some time at a theme park in North Carolina called Carowinds. Carowinds had Klingons walking around and Devon was in heaven. They had a display of these necklaces that had pendants in the shape of bat'leths. He just had to have one for his new friend Tonya. So he and his grandfather struck up a deal. Melvin bought the necklace, but Devon had to go a whole day without fighting with his brother, or Melvin got to keep it.”

Grandma Mae threw Bubbie a smile. “Ruth, you’re lucky; you’ve only known those two since they’ve started acting like the twins most people think they are. There was a time when they couldn’t go an hour without fighting and in a place like Carowinds, where they disagreed on everything from what character was actually cool to which ride to go on next…you can imagine. So Dev didn’t make it to twelve hours…and he only made it as long as he did because we counted the time both boys were sleep. Melvin had intended to give it to him at Christmas that year and Dev could then give it to you when y’all went back to school. Only Melvin...well he was a good provider and a wonderful father and grandfather but sometimes he lost things…a lot of times he lost things. I was out in his workhouse a few weeks ago looking for a hammer and damned if I didn’t find a bag that had Carowinds almost completely faded off the side.” She pulled a garter from her bag. “The leather cord it came on was too far gone, but this was still going strong. So I made you this.” The garter was made of doubled silk and lace in a shade of white so pure it almost hurt my eyes. Sewn to it was a time tarnished stainless steel bat'leth about two inches long and half an inch wide.

“It’s a replica of the Sword of Kahless, the first bat'leth ever made.” I breathed. “Damn I love that man.” I grabbed Grandma Mae in a hug. “His PopPop wanted this found at this point in time.” I said confidently.

“That’s just what I thought too.” She giggled. She handed me another garter, this one white and blue and clearly store brought. “Wear the good one on your left thigh and this one for him to throw on your right.” She told me with a grin. “I want you to keep that one so that your little girl will have something really old to wear on her big day. And she will know that her Great-grandparents are there watching over her…just like PopPop is here watching today.” After that the rest of the early evening was a bit of a blur. Before I knew it we were standing beyond the tent the guests were seated under looking towards the altar.

Love and Marriage (Frank Sinatra)  
Sam Point of View

I was a guy…in fact I’d even go so far as to say I was a very manly man type dude…but that being said, I have to say I freakin’ love weddings. There is something about watching two people who are truly in love committing to spend their lives together and trying to make that love last until the day heaven calls them home that is just beautiful to me. I’ve been to quite a few weddings; one of my earliest memories was being the ring bearer for my Godmama’s wedding when I was knee high to a grasshopper; but I had to admit that I had never been to one quite like Devon and Tonya’s. Puck and I helped Theo and Walter seat guests while music played, but rather than the boring old classical music there were a bunch of love songs from the nineties playing. Then when it was time to lead in the grandmothers and other family honorees, the song changed to Shaggy’s Angel. Theo and Walter took their places next to Devon and his best man Kevon after walking in their grandmothers and the ladies were to enter by themselves. I had almost tripped over my own tongue when I saw who was officiating the ceremony. Someone -from the grin on his face at my reaction, something told me it was the groom- had gotten the single most prolific sci-fi character of our time to marry Dev and Tonya. Holy everlasting QI'yaH! There at the altar, under the big wrought iron arch framing a seven or eight foot wide view of the Atlantic Ocean, stood all six foot four inches of the X-Files’ Alien Bounty Hunter, Star Trek’s Second Officer Klag, Toman'torax, Inglatu, and Admiral Valdore, Kindred the Embraced’s Eddie Fiori, Mortal Kombat Annihilation’s Shao Khan, Buffy’s Luke and the Judge himself…Brian Thompson. Looking around I could shock and awe on a lot of faces. The dude had been in so many action movies even Puck knew who he was. I could not believe how cool this family was.

The bridal party walked down the aisle, appropriately enough, to the theme from Star Trek: tNG. The ladies in their pretty red dresses entered with Tonya’s childhood BFF Michelle entering first. She was really pretty nice… and so light though that I knew that if Auntie Arielle had actually come she would have been lamenting why Devon didn’t choose her instead. Then came Mercedes. God she was so beautiful; the deep red made her skin look softer and silkier and just so damn pretty. She wasn’t wearing much makeup, just some pretty lip gloss that made me long to kiss her. Veronica had cut her long weave into a shorter, layered, look that wasn’t quite shoulder length and who ever had done it today had made it look like a shorter version of her normal hair when it is free and curly. Patrice was the last to come down the sand aisle between the two groups of chairs. Her long hair was braided up from the nape of her neck and then arranged in a riot of curls at her crown.

I remember Mercedes saying that Missy was the honorary Maid of Honor, but since Kevon was Devon’s Best Man, Patrice was the active Maid of Honor. A few bars after the crescendo that would have signified the end of the opening credits of the show, the Next Generation theme faded and ‘Here Comes the Bride’ began. As everyone stood and turned to the aisle, Puck and I hurriedly rolled out the white runner and stepped over to the side making sure not to block anyone’s view of the proceedings. Mister Lester and Tonya appeared at the other end of the runner and she simply glowed. Her dress was really pretty; covering her pretty much from one shoulder to hem, but leaving her arms bare. She didn’t carry any flowers, so all the focus really was on her and nothing else. They came down the aisle and I could see on her face the second she saw the officiate. “qaStaH nuq jay.” She breathed just loudly enough for us all to hear her and the men at the altar to both grin…but she didn’t pause for a second.

Mr. Thompson led the ceremony pretty efficiently. His prayers were a little old fashioned; I think he got them from a book or something. After the first prayer, Mercedes stepped forward and she did her solo. As beautiful as her singing had been at Nationals, Celine Dion’s ‘Because You Loved Me’ had never sounded more beautiful than it did that night. Then Mr. Lester ‘gave the bride away’ and Mr. Thompson gave the couple the ‘charge’; basically reminding them that marriage was sacred and forever. Kevon and Patrice read a scripture from first Corinthians for Kevon and Ruth for Patrice. Mercy’s aunts Alexis and Ricki stood and did a truly come to Jesus version of Yolanda Adams and Donnie McClurken’s ‘The Prayer’. Individually their voices were great, but together…they were just plain awesome.

Devon and Tonya pledged to create a union of equals whose souls nurtured and cared for one another. They promised to make their love a beacon unto the stars. It was a very beautiful and touching moment. As per our promise to the happy couple, Puck and I joined Mercedes and in three part harmony as we sang ‘Our Love is Here to Stay’. Then the coolest thing I had ever seen in real life happened…he led Dev and Tonya in their vows, in Romulan, Klingon and in English. I swear…I didn’t know what I was going to have to do to make Puck and Mercy agree to do our vows in Na’vi…but it would happen. Oh yes…it would so happen. After the vows and the exchanging of the rings, Mercedes serenaded the happy couple with another of Nat King Cole’s songs, ‘Unforgettable’. Tonya and her wedding planner had timed things perfectly, so she and Devon were pronounced Man and Wife and came dancing back down the aisle to Whitney Houston’s Million Dollar Bill right as the sun was setting behind them.

The wedding party had to stay back and take pictures, so Puck, Jake and I went up and helped move Devon’s stuff up to the suite that they would be spending the night in before they left on their honey moon. He was already packed and since he was sharing a room with the babies, it was very easy to see the couple of things he’d almost left behind. We finished pretty quickly and headed down to Walker’s Landing where the reception was being held. The exterior deck space was tented and set up for dining, and the interior had been turned into a great lounge and dance floor. The DJ had gotten in and set up and he was definitely a cut above the expected. He had brought his own lighting and turned the place from the beauty of nature that it had been the night before at the rehearsal and made it even more gorgeous, but with the way the windows were lit they looked like mirrors until about half way up where you could see evening fading into a star filled night.

There was an open bar, but they were checking IDs like it was major serious. The Neely’s had decided upon a buffet. They had roughly a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty guests which included about twenty five teenage boys…the buffet was a good call. For the ‘Cocktail Hour’ there was a station of four hors d’oeuvres. Two of the choices were cold; lobster medallion with red chili crème on dill crustini, and goat cheese & kalamata-caper relish phyllo cup. And the other two were hot; potato wrapped shrimp with chilled lobster dip, and mini Cumberland blue crab cake with citrus aioli. I may have had to ask what everything was, those signs were all done in very pretty calligraphy, but I have trouble reading regular cursive…so Puck had to read them for me. I was feeling a little embarrassed until an older lady thanked him too. “I have such a hard time reading those things.” She admitted.

Nearby, but not so close as to create a traffic jam, there was also what they called a reception station. The reception station was a huge display of little plate type things they called Tapas. There was a boat load of choices; grilled asparagus with shaved serrano ham, marinated sevillana and green olives with garlic, oregano, rosemary and black pepper lemon Spanish olive oil, smoked bean dip with pita chips, roasted vegetable and manchego cheese flatbread, chorizo and potatoes, grilled garlic pork ribs romesco, corona and thyme chicken wings, spinach and shrimp tortilla with saffron aioli. Between me Puck and Mercy and Tonya’s cousins, we tried them all. It was almost strange hanging out with all of Tonya’s cousins. While Mercedes’ family members knew the deal with us and Mercy, some of Tonya’s cousins had some issues. Of course we didn’t find that out right away. At first they just assumed that we were friends that had been asked to act as ushers.

They figured out different real soon after the DJ introduced the wedding party. The introductions took place to the strains of Michael Franti & Spearhead’s ‘Say Hey, I love You’. Mercedes came in with Theo, and after they did a quick turn, he walked her right over to us with a big ass, shit eating grin. He went and started dancing with Michelle, who didn’t have a date and Mercy dragged Puck and I out to dance with her. Walter had been excused from the dancing since he was technically grounded. So he was here, but his mom and Mr. Lester had told him he couldn’t do anything really fun. He was allowed to eat and drink. But he had to be back up in his room by eleven. That was fine with Puck and I, it gave us the chance to spend extra time dancing with our girlfriend. We kept things PG, but still it was nice to have that moment. When the song ended the floor cleared except for the bride and groom.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please join me in congratulating our lovely couple on their marriage. The new Mr. And Mrs. Jones will be sharing their first dance of their married life to the song they first danced together to at their very first middle school dance where a young Devon gathered all his courage and asked young Tonya to be his girlfriend. They have been together ever sense.” The DJ said before Aaliyah’s voice filled the room. The song was “I Care 4 U” off the last album she released before her untimely death. We watched the couple move together and to be honest, I think we were all thinking the same thing. We couldn’t wait for it to be our turn.

After the ‘required’ dances, we were allowed to hit the buffet. The bride and groom went first, followed by the grandmothers and the parents. Then the rest of the wedding party lined up and the rest of the lineup was pretty much a free for all. Fortunately Tonya and Devon both considered us as wedding party adjacent enough that we got to line up with Mercy. The three of us stood behind the other wedding party members. Puck and I exchanged looks as we heard the usual bullshit coming from the twenty one and under set. ‘Can’t believe that sista is with those white boys,’ was probably one of the nicest. Of course there was the obligatory, ‘you know they can’t be hittin’ that shit right…poor thing is probably unsatisfied…I should show her what it’s like to be with a real man’. Poor fool. First of all his date overheard his comment and she was pissed. Second of all, I don’t really check for men like that, but even I knew he wasn’t fine enough to think he could pull any woman away from me let alone Puck. Third of all…by himself… Mercy would kill him. There were days, usually just a day or so before her period would start if she still got one, that she almost killed Puck and I together. Thankfully my hormone problem had pretty much gotten synced with hers, and we were pretty much able to give each other a run for our money…and we just dragged poor Puck along for the ride.

We didn’t let any of their bs phase us. We made our way through the buffet. There were four choices for the first course; the one that ended up on my plate was the baby green salad which included roasted pecans, crumbled Maytag blue cheese, seasonal dried fruit, cherry tomato, hothouse cucumbers, and accompanied by assorted dressings. The second choice, Mercy’s pick, was shrimp and scallop pasta “on the rocks” rock shrimp, bay scallops, penne pasta with Genovese basil pesto and bitter frisee. Puck decided on the fresh Florida citrus shrimp salad. We left the fourth choice alone…it was a roasted red pepper and goat cheese bisque…none of us thought that sounded the least bit like something we wanted to eat. There was a divide, so you could choose to get your salad and then come back and get your entrée, but the whole wedding party chose to power through and grab our entrees as well.

The four entrée choices were delicious looking. Beef & veal tortellacci carbonara with pancetta bacon and green peas, braised short rib of beef with natural jus reduction, sage and apple brined pork tenderloin with smoked barbeque sauce or pan roasted salmon with heirloom tomato and sweet onion broth could each be accompanied by creamy risotto with wild mushroom melange, walnut pesto, caramelized onions, baby shrimp, and shaved prosciutto, roasted garlic and wasabi mashed potatoes, or cheese tortellini and penne with herb pesto. The vegetables dishes we had to choose from were grilled lemon parmesan asparagus, steamed garlic broccoli, a roasted yam and kale salad with carmelized onions and garlic, and a mixed grill veggie combo with eggplant, asparagus, onions, mushrooms, green beans and some other stuff I couldn’t quite place. Since both Puck and I had already scheduled shoots the first Monday we were in LA, I was good and went with the salmon and some of each of the vegetable choices. I was saving my bad for Hell Bent’s Fourth of July BBQ.

Mercedes thought ahead too. She had picked the salmon; she hadn’t been able to resist the lure of the risotto and paired it with the asparagus and the mixed grill veggies. Puck had gone the exact opposite way, he had gotten the pork tenderloin, the mashed potatoes plus the asparagus, the broccoli and the yam and kale salad. We headed up to the head table where there were seats for us on either side of our woman. The rest of the night flew by there were toasts and Kevon did his best to embarrass Devon as completely as humanly possible. He even told a story about catching Devon masturbating while on the phone with Tonya when she had spent a semester in Italy. He cleaned it up, but it got a huge laugh anyway. Patrice allowed Michelle to give the Maid of Honor toast. She spoke of seeing them together at school when they first started really talking and watching their relationship as it developed. She mentioned the dance and how happy Tonya was that Devon had asked her to be his girlfriend. Supposedly Tonya told her that night that she was going to marry Devon…she didn’t really think they would end up doing it. There was plenty of glasses clinking to make the newly wedded couple kiss. After dinner the dancing commenced.

The DJ kept us hopping. There were a lot line dances I’ve never even heard of, like the Cupid Shuffle, and the Cha Cha Slide. He played a lot of reggae at the bride’s request. There was also a lot of nineties R&B and, by the end of the night, grinding music. After most of the fifty and older crew and the under eighteen crowd had all toddled off to bed, the music got down right raunchy. We made it back to our room about two am and left a trail of clothes from the door to the bed. As soon as we had her out of that demurely sexy dress, her bustier and thong, I grabbed a condom and slid my dick into her just hard enough to launch her into a quickstrike orgasm. “Fuck yeah, Darling. Come for us.” I moaned and leaned down to kiss her hard and fast.

Soon as I moved back a little Noah thrust his cock between our lips and we went to work on him even as we pleased each other. It wasn’t slow and sweet. It was down, dirty fast and hard. I was feeling far too nasty and horny to think clearly. When Noah reached the point of no return, I grabbed his cock and jerked his cum all over Mercy tits. Then in a fevered, frenzied rush I licked sucked and bit those big chocolate mounds until they were clean and slick. Still feeling freaky as fuck, I pulled my dick from her tight, wet pussy and shifted my hips to enter her backdoor in a quick hard plunge. The scream that come out of her was so loud it would have scared me had it not been so pleasure filled. Two thrusts later it ratcheted up as Puck took a nipple in his mouth to tease and torment…her special ‘oh my God’ scream of awesomeness reverberated around the hotel room, and possibly the entire floor. Despite the fact that he had cum just minutes before, Noah shot off all over our woman and as I felt myself falling into my own abyss, all I could think was thank God I’d changed entrances. Cum poured out of me and into her clenching ass until there was no way that condom hadn’t broken. When I was finally able to move, I pulled back and sure enough…creamy cum was almost flooring back out of her. A shower was certainly called for…but first Puck and I traded places to clean our beautiful, sexy girlfriend up enough not to leave a trail to the bathroom.

After our shower we returned to the king sized bed and we fucked until we couldn’t move or scream or cum again. Only then did we fall into a deep, sated sleep. The next morning, I awoke before my lovers and decided to be a little naughty. I woke Puck up by sliding my lube covered dick straight up his tight little asshole. Even as I was waking Noah, I was sucking Mercy’s nearest nipple as hard as I could. Things went from there. We barely made it down to the lobby in time to see Devon and Tonya off with the rest of the family. There had been talk of taking Tessa and Jake to the beach, but they ended up going with the Moms and Dads and Triple S.

We did make it to the beach Wednesday. That was a load of fun; the Dads had found a surf shop and bought a bunch of boogie boards and stuff. The Moms had gotten a picnic from the deli restaurant at the hotel and we stayed out there so long by the time we made it back to the hotel Puck and Jake were a hell of a lot closer to being the same skin color. Which was kind of weird cause it made them look way too much alike. We left the beach around four and went back to the resort to shower and pack. We grabbed dinner on the way to the airport. Our flight was really pretty quick. We left JAX at nine and despite the obligatory Delta Atlanta layover; we made it to Dayton by midnight and home to Lima by two. Because Noah, Mercy and I were heading to LA early Saturday morning, Mills and Saul were returning to Lima with us. Mills was going to provide the introduction to her friend and Saul was going to help us with the rental car. Even having switched out two people we were supposed to have three less bags…we still didn’t have any extra rooms in the vans on either leg of the trip.

By the time we made it home we were all exhausted well except Mara and Maea…they had slept the better part of the trip. So we were all some very sleepy folk as we were trying to keep them entertained and take naps in turns. As much as I was looking forward to the BBQ, I was almost wishing that it wasn’t later that same day. Mercy, Puck and I had missed the little princesses something fierce, so we stayed up with them until they were finally ready to go back to sleep. The food at the barbeque was incredible, just like I figured it would be. Because we’d just gotten back from the wedding, the food was less labor intensive this year and it was just family, but we still had a great time. The rest of the week flew by. Before I could really see everyone, well at least the ones who were still in town, we were on the plane winging it to LA with Mills and Saul.


	5. Imitation of Life (R.E.M.) & California Love (Tupac & Dr. Dre)

Chapter 5  
Imitation of Life (R.E.M.)  
Mills Point of View

Arriving at LAX was always a challenge. I have always had bad LAX juju. I always ended up flying into the furthest terminal gate from baggage claim. It never failed. That time was no different. We flew into gate thirty-four in Terminal B. We’d needed to rise early to make our nine o’clock flight out of Dayton, and the flight was a little over seven hours long. But we got to LA at two thirty their time. Madeline St. Clair met us at baggage claim and helped us with all the bags and instruments Noah, Sam and Mercedes had brought with them. Saul and I only had our carry-on bags. I gave a more in depth introduction to the trio and Maddie, then she and I talked and caught up while Saul headed to the rental counter with the young ones to get their rental car.

“Damn Mills.” She laughed gaily. “That man and his nephew are both so fucking sexy…and don’t even get me started on the boyfriend. Maybe I need to come back to the east coast; they certainly aren’t making men like that out here. My last boyfriend spent more time in the mirror and salon than I do.” Madeline was the quintessential LA beauty; she was just a little under six feet tall, long blonde hair and big greenish blue eyes. She was slender with boobs that she’d not had the first time I met her. Looking her over, I noticed that she had had some other work done too. “I know you hooked his cousin up with Francie, does he have a brother or something for me?”

I laughed and shook my head. “Sorry, just a sister and a mother. He has a few other male cousins…but they are all older and married.”

“Well Shit.” She joked. “You look so happy, Mills…I’m so happy for you.” She said seriously. “Now tell me everything you and Francie have left out of our emails and phone convos.” By the time Saul and ‘Commune’ returned with the rental car keys, I had told Maddie the story of Saul and my impromptu wedding and how Frannie had strung Neil along for six dates before putting it on him so good, he’d dragged Saul to Tiffany’s to start looking at engagement rings. We gathered everything and made our way to the rental car first.

Saul had rented the trio a four door Focus. We divided down gender lines for the ride out to the house in Burbank. It took us just a little over an hour in Saturday afternoon traffic. The house was really nice. It was a two story modernized Spanish Colonial, close to the studio where Mercedes would be filming and only about thirty minutes from the offices of the modeling agency for Sam and Noah. Madeline led us through on a fairly quick tour. “The home belongs to the May family. The father, Richard, and mother, Trina, are both in the film industry and are on location in New Zealand for the summer. Since the kids, Felix and Josephine, are out of school, they took them with them.” She handed Sam who was standing nearest to her an envelope. “Here is the first half of your fee…one thousand up front and one thousand when you leave, depending on the condition of the house and McConaughey, the family’s Yorkshire terrier. He is currently next door. I’ll bring him over before I leave. He is house dog, but he has his own room on the enclosed sun deck.”

She showed us the dog’s room. It was nicer than some Manhattan apartments. The dog didn’t even have one of those on the floor doggie beds; no he had a miniature version of a little boy’s racecar bed. “Richard left you a copy of his feeding and care schedule in the file in the kitchen. The pantry is fully stocked for him but you will need to provide your own food.” We all nodded. They probably would have done that anyway. I mean who wants to eat other people, non-family, people’s, food? “The refrigerator is clean and you are, of course free to use it while you are here.” Maddie continued talking as we moved on. “The house has three bedrooms on the second floor, a master suite on the third and you will be staying in the in-laws suite on the first floor. You’ll have your own sitting room, bedroom and bathroom. You are free to use the first floor, though the family does ask that you not go into their private areas.”

“Of course, we won’t.” MeDe agreed easily. “I wouldn’t want strangers all up in my bedrooms either.”

Noah grabbed her up. “Besides, we tend to keep Sexy Mama chained to our bed when she isn’t working.” He joked.

Our laughter rang through the house as Maddie showed us the nice ‘chef’ kitchen. The rest of the floor contained a great room off the kitchen and breakfast nook, a formal dining room, a living room. There was a half bath near the front of the house and a three piece bathroom off the great room. The in-laws suite also had a three piece bathroom. Between the two and a half bathrooms on the first floor the kids should be covered fully. The furnishings in the house were very heavy and much older fashioned than I would have expected, but the sitting room they would call theirs for the next few weeks had that furnished by Ikea kind of style that was significantly less burdensome. “The Wi-Fi password, security code and emergency contact information are all in the folder on the counter in the kitchen as well.” She pointed out.

“Is the pool okay for us to use?” Puck asked looking out the back window.

Maddie looked through her notes. “They didn’t say no, and technically it and the Jacuzzi attached to it are a part of the first floor.”

“Cool. Don’t worry…I’ll clean it for them before we leave. So they might not even notice they were used.” He told her with a grin.

“Alright. I’ll make sure to let them know.” Maddie smiled.

“Hey, if they are gone for six weeks, who’s going to house sit after we leave?” Sam’s curiosity got the better of him.

Maddie sighed. “You guys are the second sitter. The first was a perfectly lovely young woman…or at least that’s what the May family thought. Until Trina’s best friend, Gerri, stopped by to check on her a week into the arrangement and found her stoned out of her mind. In her drug addled state it apparently seemed like a good idea to spread peanut butter in very inappropriate places and trying to coax the poor dog out of his ‘room’. Suffice it to say she was very fired. Her friend and I have been taking turns making sure that the house was okay and that we kept to McConaughey’s feeding schedule.”

“Okay…that’s the grossest thing I think I have ever heard.” Mercedes muttered. “That poor little doggie.”

“You don’t know the half of it. If she had succeeded and fallen asleep, that dog would have been smothered.” Maddie added with a shake of her head.

Puck and Sam both went unnaturally still. “You aren’t another Francesca Jarrard are you?” Sam’s voice was damn near scary in its intensity.

Mads looked confused. Suddenly she got what had caused the sudden tension. “Oh you mean…no, I personally don’t care about size other than the health aspect…but that woman weighed more than everyone in this room combined. On top of that, she was borderline slovenly. We had to get a maid in here after we got rid of her. And the maid, she burned the sheets the woman used. Gerri had to buy Trina some new ones. So no, I don’t have Francie’s psycho obsession with weight; though in her defense, you’d be crazy too with her mother.”

“Having met the woman, I cannot disagree.” I added in with a grin. “Anyway, we should go ahead and get your groceries and such so we can get checked in.”

“Oh, there’s a Trader’s Joes about a mile away.” Maddie said happily. “I love their cookie butter ice cream.”

“Is it that time again.” Puck said excitedly. When we all looked at him in shock, he just shrugged unconcernedly. “What? It’s good as a mug.”

We headed out and the trio followed us in the Focus as we rode with Maddie. I noticed that they picked healthy food that they would be cooking themselves rather than just quick foods and snacks. They seemed to have enough fruit and vegetables, both fresh and frozen, to start their own fruit stand. They didn’t just buy food, they bought small things of all their favorite condiments and staples like flour and sugar and EVOO. I was a little surprised. My freshman year of college, I lived in a building with a kitchen and I never used it…ever. I ate out whenever I didn’t eat in the cafeteria. But not these guys. They weren’t just planning on eating in; they were planning on doing real meals. They drove to a Target they found on the GPS and they surprised me a little again. Mercedes gave the boys a very big grin as she dragged them to the grocery section of the store and grabbed all the things she would need to make scratch made cupcakes and homemade frosting. We followed them to the cookware and home goods sections and watched as she picked out a big ass cupcake pan, and cooling rack. Together they picked out a small two quart crockpot, a Dutch oven and a large six quart slow cooker, all of them in red.

I guess my curiosity was apparent because Sam smiled at me and answered my unasked question. “Momma and Moma Dani pointed out that with how hectic our schedules will be we’d probably do best with slow cooker dishes. When we are ready to go home, we can just UPS them back to Lima.”

“Smart thinking.” I nodded. “Saul and I should look into getting one when we get home. There really isn’t any need for us to eat out so much.”

MeDe nodded. “We found a great site with a whole bunch of healthy crockpot recipes; I’ll email it to you.” She led the charge to get them set with toiletries and that kind of thing. I bit back a laugh when I saw that they also picked up a mattress cover and some sheets for the bed as well. After we left Target, we saw them back to the house and settled in for the night. After saying our goodbyes, we headed to our hotel, which was closer to Maddie than it was to the kids. We did that on purpose, otherwise Saul would have talked me into checking on them at least once during the evening. Or maybe that would be the other way around. What can I say; Saul’s family has filled a hole in me that I didn’t realize was a big or as empty as it was until it was filled. I love each and every single one of them as if they were my blood and not simply my in-laws. But perhaps that’s how it is in the best of families.

Since I had booked all our flights for this trip, Saul had handled the hotel arrangements. He had us staying at the Hyatt Regency Resort and Spa in Huntington Beach. The room was indefinably gorgeous. The bathroom was even more so. It was only about five when we checked in, so Maddie convinced us to come to her house with her. As much as I love my friend, I really could have stayed in that hotel room until it was time for us to leave. The bathtub alone was worth at least two hours of my time. But she was my friend and I hadn’t seen her in person in over a year, so we headed out with her. We stopped and had dinner at a cool little spot called Sushi on Fire. It was crowded, but the service was excellent and the sushi was totally amazing. It was also pretty different from what I was used to, the fish was fresher and their roll combinations unique. 

The three of us walked along the beach and talked allowing Maddie and Saul to get to know each other and Maddie and I to finish catching up. The original plan was that we would do this at her house, but it was such a nice evening and the beach was very nearby and pretty quiet compared to what one would have expected. “So, I mean, I know you told me kind of how they got together and all that, but be honest, do you think you could ever…”

Saul shrugged. “Not with another guy…I just don’t have that kind of leaning, but every man fantasizes about seeing two beautiful women together and then joining the fun.”

I shook my head. “Sorry dear. You missed that sight by about a decade. I tried the whole ‘chick play’ once, way back when…it wasn’t for me.”

Maddie grinned evilly. “Maybe not, but you must have been pretty good at it. You turned Nadia so far out that she still hasn’t gone back to men…or even white girls.” She laughed. She went on to explain to Saul about her freshman year roommate, Nadia. “Nadia was gorgeous…definitely the kind of girl who makes even the straightest arrow have to pause and question…just to let you know...she works as a fetish model for a couple of websites now. Oh wait.” She grabbed her phone and pulled up the site that had pretty much paid Nadia’s mortgage. Nadia was right on the front page in a lavender latex bodysuit and fishnet hose. Saul looked it over and grinned salaciously at me. I know that he was going to want details…too bad for him. Maddie just continued not seeing the subtle undercurrent between my husband and me. “Truthfully, if you are going to experiment, she would definitely be anybody’s first choice. So anyway, one night we’re all sitting around and we had the great idea to play ‘I Never’. Well somehow we got onto the whole girls-on-girls subject and Millsy had never even practiced kissing with her female friends in middle school like a normal girl.”

“I didn’t have any female friends until half way through high school and then most of them were with me on the softball team. I’m not trying to stereotype or anything…but come on.” I defended. 

“Anyway.” She said in a tone that told Saul to ignore me. “She got to pick who she was going to have her first girl kiss with, and it was Nadia…which Francie and I totally understood. So they start kissing, and practice kissing turned into full on making out. So Francie leans over and asks me if it was supposed to be so hot watching them making out. The decision was made that we wanted to know if we were as hot making out as Nadia and Millsy. The next morning Francie and I wake up in my bed both of us down to our panties and Nadia and Mills are in her bed naked as the day they were born…it took Mills the rest of college to convince Nadia that she wasn’t into doing that ever again. Nadia still brings vodka to all of our ‘Girls Gone Crazy’ weekends just in case she can get Mills drunk enough for a repeat performance.”

I just tried not to wish a huge wave would come up and drag me into the ocean. “Remind me to tell the guy you marry all about your little side business senior year. After all…that is how Nadia got into fetish modeling in the first place, isn’t it Maddie?”

Madeline at least had the grace to blush. “Hey I needed to pay my tuition that semester. It was easy money.”

“If you say so. I just want to point out that you didn’t stop after you paid your tuition…you didn’t stop until after you paid for your new boobs.” I taunted.

“Whatever.” She shrugged unconcernedly. “Not all of us can get them as a graduation present like Francie. These bad boys have made quite the return on investment out here. Once you hit a certain price point, these crazy Hollyweird types expect everyone to be beautiful, even just us lowly realtors.”

“Oh please…you were beautiful before the implants…you were just flat chested.” I poked.

Maddie pushed me and laughed. It was a recurring conversation for us. “We’re just rehashing old shit…so I’m gonna be a good girl and let you and your hubby head back to the hotel and get your swerve on. I’m gonna run home and get changed and hit the club, see if I can’t find me a honey for a night.”

Saul stood gracefully and reached out a hand to help me to my feet. “I guess I should be the good friend and tell you that we can go to the club with you or hang out some more…but I’m really tired. Why don’t you come get us around twelve thirty tomorrow and we can have lunch before we head out?”

“That sounds good. I’ll even take you up to Burbank so you can see your niece and nephews before you go.” Maddie offered with a smirk. “I know how much of a mama bear you are.”

“Oh shut up…you only call me that when it’s not your plastic surgery induced ass that I’m mothering.” I argued back playfully.

“God didn’t see fit to bless all of us as well as he did you, let alone as blessed as your niece is. She got her ass, my ass, Francie’ and about five other peoples…Nicki Minaj paid good money to have her ass look like that and it still isn’t as round as Mercedes. That’s just not fair to those of us who are gluteus maximus-ly –challenged. Then you top it off with real boobs that are bigger than the ones I paid for…just not fair I tell you, just ain’t fair.”

Saul and I exchanged a long look, both of us trying to hold back our laughter at her ridiculous, pouty statement. But neither of us could deny the truth of her comments either. When I felt sure that I could open my mouth without laughter spilling forth, I smirked. “You won’t let your jealousy keep you from being there for the kids if they need something…right?”

“Of course not.” Maddie defended with a hurt look. “Besides, I figure if I chill with them just a little they’ll somehow lead me to my Mr. Right…it worked for both you and Francie.”

We couldn’t’ not laugh at that. Those kids did seem to have the match making fortune of Cupid and Venus combined. We headed back to the hotel and said goodnight to Maddie. Saul took me up to the room. As soon as the door closed he pulled me into his arms. “You know you have to tell me all about your little experimentation. After all, I happen to know that no matter how much you’ve been drinking, you don’t forget what happens while you’re drunk.”

I rolled my eyes and set about convincing him to let the past stay there. It took three rounds of very intense orgasms, but he finally stopped trying to convince me to share with him the events of a night that had happened so long ago and been so unremarkable to me that I really didn’t have much to share in the first place. The next morning began with another round of lovemaking before we got showered, dressed and packed. Maddie met us in the lobby and we talked while Saul handled checking us out.

“Have to say, I’m a little surprised you’re walking so normally.” She teased.

I, of course, flicked her off. “We’ve been married for four months and made love pretty much every single night. One night of lovemaking is no longer enough to render me hobblelegged. Especially since Saul is as good with his hands as he is with the rest of his body.” I returned primly.

“He must be good…you’re glowing.” She laughed.

“Girl, you don’t even know.” I laughed. We packed our luggage into Maddie’s trunk and drove to Duke’s and had a truly amazing brunch buffet. Driving to Burbank seemed a little counterintuitive since we had to pass the airport exit on the way, but I really wanted to see the trio before we headed back. I called from the car when we passed the Trader Joe’s we’d taken them to the night before, so they were waiting on us when we got there. Mercedes had already started her cupcakes.

“Sam dragged Puck and me out for a run this morning, and I ended up swinging through Trader Joe’s. I got the stuff I needed to make some more interesting cupcakes, so I’m making carrot cake, red velvet and simple white cake ones.” She said happily. Noah had dragged his uncle out to the pool and Jacuzzi that he and Sam were cleaning, leaving me and Maddie to chat with MeDe. “I have all this extra energy. Most of it is nerves. I don’t really understand why, but I’m a lot more nervous that I was for the filming in Chicago.” She confessed.

I smiled. “I think I would be too. I mean, the Chicago filming would be cool of itself, but actually shooting a movie in Hollywood is a whole ‘nother level.”

“Exactly.” She groaned. “I mean, it’s not just the filming though…LA is filled with skinny, blonde bitches; no offense Maddie…”

“None taken…it is and most of them have had even more plastic surgery than Joan Rivers.” Maddie joked.

“Exactly.” She said again pointing a batter-covered spatula at us. “What the hell am I gonna do if one of those heifers try to scoop my men?”

I sighed. “You are gonna rely on them and trust that they are gonna turn those skinny blonde bitches down…just like they always do.”

Mercedes shook her head. “Oh, I’m not worried about them straying. I’m worried about the blatant disrespect pissing me off so much I catch a damn case.”

We all shared a laugh. There was that problem. Maddie had the perfect solution. “Every time you think you’re about to snap on one of those fake ass broads, just do some subtle thing to make Noah and Sam pant after you…it will humiliate the chick in front of her girls. Usually that makes them go slinking off to lick their wounds. Very few of them are willing to fight ‘cause silicone will pop and collagen treatments add up quick.”

“Oooh good looking out Maddie. I think we’re gonna get along just fine.” Mercedes agreed.

We stayed long enough that Mercedes was able to give Saul and me some cupcakes to take to the airport with us and she sent Maddie home with some too. Poor thing, she is one of those bakers who can’t just make a dozen…she has to make the full recipe of each. She ended up with a hundred and eight cupcakes. She told us she was taking some to the next door neighbor and swore she was going to take some to the set with her the next day and get rid of some more of them.

Maddie was a great friend, she drove us to the airport and we said our goodbyes in the car so she wouldn’t have to park. And she only stole one extra cupcake of each kind for her troubles. The flight back to Manhattan was very long, but Saul and I made the best of it. I never believed that I would be a member of the mile high club, let alone on more than one flight. Lord Jesus the things that man can talk me into. The rest of our summer was chock full of building and selling. We were busy managing the duplex build in Harlem, and we were still in the process of picking everything for our house in Long Island. I was more and more tempted to pay Kurt to do the ‘public’ areas for me, the living and formal dining rooms…those kinds of places. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it and make them look gorgeous; I just didn’t seem to have enough hours in my day. But the honest truth was my life was better than it had been since my parent’s death and I loved every busy, crazy, decision-filled second of it.

 

California Love (Tupac & Dr. Dre)  
Mercedes Point of View

It was a little sad to see Mills and Uncle Saulie leave. It was weird. Saul was definitely ‘Uncle Saulie’, but Mills was almost more like my big sister than an aunt. Not long after they left, Sam and Noah took my mind completely off of that twinge of missing them. It was very cool. They ‘forced’ me to relax in the Jacuzzi while they cleaned up the kitchen and put away all the cupcakes. I had given Mills and Saul half a dozen of each and Maddie a half dozen total to take home with her. I set aside a half dozen for the neighbor who had helped with McConaughey until we got there and packed up another half dozen of each to take to rehearsal the next day and let the boys handle the rest. I relaxed for almost an hour before hunger made me get out and rush the boys along. They had finished the kitchen, but the Mays had an X-Box in their great room and the boys were enjoying the wide variety of games they could play. I managed to drag them away to shower with me and we talked about what we should do about food that night.

We decided to go exploring the area and find some place for dinner. Our travels led us to this great Thai restaurant. We also found a quick route to the studio that was on the way to the highway for them. We did a little more exploring and then headed back to the house. The hotel room in Chicago had been a cool little adventure. It was like we’d moved to the city and were living in a tiny little apartment as we worked our way up. Now it was almost like we were in our starter home or something. It was nicer than the hotel room, but since it was just a temporary home, we weren’t hard pressed to get attached or worry about the fact that we only had access to what amounted to a one bedroom condo. The guest room we’d been assigned for our trip was certainly nice enough. I could see where their family members would enjoy staying with them.

The bedroom was roomy even though it was dominated a little by a king sized bed. I was kind of surprised to see a king in a guest room until I realized that, given the room’s furnishings, it was probably a hand me down from the master suite when Mister and Mrs. May updated/upgraded their own space. The bed was wrought iron with wood accents and the dressers were the mirror, wood with iron details. As soon as we’d been left alone the night before, we’d stripped the bed and remade it with the mattress cover we’d gotten at Target as well as our sheets. While Puck took McConaughey for a walk, Sam and I folded the sheets that Maddie and Mrs. May’s friend had gotten to replace the ones the previous house sitter had ruined and put them in the closet. That would save us from having to wash them later.

Our second day was filled with a little more shopping, baking and family. Maddie was nice. I could see where she would make a nice bridge between Francine and Mills. When we got back from dinner, Sam took the dog for a walk while I got the crock pot meal ready for the next day. Puck acted as my sous chef. He may not like to cook, but the boy was damn good with a knife…which really shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me. By the time Sam got back we were cleaning up. McConaughey ran through the kitchen to his domicile giving us a happy, but tired little bark. Sam followed soon there after having taken the time to lock the house up tight and set the alarm for the night. He’d also washed his doggied up hands…he knew I didn’t play that. He gave me and Puck both quick kisses then headed into ‘our room’ while we finished our chores.

As soon as I closed the refrigerator door, having put the assembled pot roast and to be roasted fingerling potatoes inside, Puck had me pressed up against the stainless steel surface kissing me so deeply I was soon breathless with want. As he licked and teased his way from my lips to my neck, I didn’t even try to hold back my moans. Even when he pulled back, my breath was short and my knees weak. He led me into the bedroom. Sam was waiting on us, already lying in the bed with the sheets and blankets rolled back. His naked body looked amazing in the soft light of the bedside lamps. His cock was standing, not fully hard, but well on the way. “Naughty Sammy Boy.” I teased, “Starting without us?”

“It’s your own fault.” He shot back as Puck slipped the straps of the maxi dress I had donned after my shower off my shoulders. “I could hear you moaning and gasping all the way in here. You know how I love to hear you sounding all sexy. And looking all fucking sexy over there in that pretty blue bra and panty set ain’t helping matters at all.”

Puck chuckled and pressed kisses to my shoulder before looking up at Sam. “It’s bout to get worse…or better depending on how you look at it.” His deft fingers made short work of the hooks holding my bra into place. The straps immediately loosened on my shoulders and my breasts were big enough that they did the rest of the job of getting rid of the bra. They hung heavy against me for only a few moments, before Puck lifted them in his hands offering them to Sam who got up and pretty much ran across the room. He licked and nibbled and sucked my nipples alternating back and forth until I was panting and shaking. Puck drew back and scooped me up, carrying me to the bed.

As soon as he stepped back to take off his own clothes, Sam pulled my panties down over my hips and off my legs before going to work eating my pussy until I was whining and begging. “Fuck you taste so damn good, Mercy.” He moaned as he lapped at the river of juices he was drawing from me. I arched up into him and could barely grunt as Puck threw his legs across my abdomen. He drizzled the valley between my breasts with the KY warming gel lubricant we’d grabbed on our Target run the night before. Thankfully I’d been able to distract Mills and Uncle Saulie with talk of baking flour versus regular flour and the best type of shifter for each while Puck had made a run down the condom and lube aisle. The four ounces we could take on planes never lasted us very long.

When he was happy with the amount of lubrication for his strokes, Puck smiled down at me. “Hold them together for me, Sexy Mama.” He asked quietly. With shaky hands, I complied. Puck slid into the tunnel created by my titflesh with a sexy as hell groan of pleasure. “Oh fuck.” He whined after several strokes. The gel was starting to warm, the sensation was strange and erotic at the same time. We’d gotten it just for this experiment. The heat was soaking into my sternum and up the sides of my breasts causing tingles of pleasure to sing through me. For Puck, it turned a pleasant tit fuck into an awesome experience. “Oh Yeshiva, it feels almost like when I’m inside you…so hot and slick. Squeeze them tighter, play with your nipples.” He ordered loudly.

“Shit.” I hissed as I did as he asked. Sam had introduced fingers into his oral delight while I’d been focused on the feelings Puck was inducing, pushing me closer and closer to the precipice of pleasure. I’d not realized how close I really was, so when I pinched my nipples, I flew headlong into a huge, almost shocking, orgasm. Apparently it was an epic one because when I finally came down, my chin; chest, cheeks and neck were covered in Noah’s load. Sam had moved up on the bed and had covered his dick in latex. Puck, shakily, helped me climb on board of Sam’s waiting erection. My orgasm had been really, really intense, so sinking down on Sammy’s cock was more than enough to launch me back into the stratosphere. His busy lips and teeth and tongue licked me clean of Puck’s jizz and kept me locked in my bliss. We made love until we were all so sated that it didn’t matter that we only had four hours before we had to be up.

The next morning was a whirlwind. I got up and showered, moisturized and threw on a simple matching black bra and tanga panty set and a cute little sundress. While Puck showered and shaved, I got our dinner out of the fridge and plugged them in. I set out McConaughey’s breakfast and readied his feeder to handle his lunch. Sam came back in from his short run, which was mainly to exercise the May’s pampered pooch, then he showered and dressed. We left the house right at seven and hit a Starbucks for caffeine and breakfast. They took me to the Warner’s lot and we got the temporary pass for the car and I kissed them each and headed in for rehearsal. They were already scheduled for a shoot that started at ten in Mulholland and they had to report to the BMG offices first.

My work was mainly the interior apartment shots. In Chicago, the movie’s setting, we’d done all the needed outside shots, often simulating seasons change and everything. In LA it was all about the soundstage apartment shots. Monday we tore through the finer points of my character’s teenage years. Then I spent an hour and a half with the costumers and hair and makeup consultants going over how to make me look even younger. The makeup artist, Sheba, did a few tricks and I looked fourteen again. Everyone agreed that I’d have to have my boobs bound for those shots though. They got me fitted with a compression garment that made me look like I was a C-cup…which was actually a little smaller than I really had been at fourteen. They put me in something else that toned down my hips and ass too, then we went over wardrobe and they pulled out some old school stuff that looked like it was from the early two thousands, which were perfect for the time period of the movie. My character was twenty one in the modern shots we’d done in Chicago, but here where we were filming the background, in the home shots, the character’s aged the preceding seven years. Thankfully there was a little girl they brought in for the pre and early puberty shots. Her name was Neisha Reynolds and someone had done a really good job casting a girl who looked like she could have been a younger version of me and Jill Scott. Her little sister Nola was playing the character from ages five through eight.

They actually had us spend two hours together in the afternoon just listening to each other talk so that we could match up our idiosyncratic sayings so the audience would really feel like I was just older versions of them. We broke for lunch and I walked back to the house and let McConaughey have a break from being inside. I grabbed a quick bite to eat and made myself a huge smoothie for my walk back to the studios. The afternoon was spent familiarizing myself with the changes that had been made by both the Weitz brothers and the screenplay writer. I had a few more lines here and there and they had added a scene between my character and the man who donated the other half of her genetic make-up. It was alluded to that he had come back into the picture after she was older, but the new scene actually showed the interaction and how little Lillian cared about him at all. Lillian may have fought her mother tooth and nail throughout the movie, but scenes like this really showed that in her mind it was her and Vivianne against the world.

I rehearsed the scene with Malik Yoba, who was playing Lillian’s dad. It was funny, I was horribly bad until I finally broke scene to tell him how freaking awesome he was and how my mom had a huge crush on him when I was little and had bought the whole New York Undercover VHS box set. Once I got the fangirling out of the way, I was finally able to relax and we breezed through the scene. We wrapped up around seven. Since Noah and Sam were still across town, I walked back to the house and took care of the dog. After taking McConaughey for a walk and making sure that everything was straight for dinner, I called Mom and we talked about the day. That was pretty much the rest of the week. I went to work, filmed my scenes or worked on ones yet to be filmed. Tuesday through Friday actually started at five rather than seven, but we made it work. I caught naps in the makeup and hair chairs, I did my yoga on set rather than getting up even earlier to do it at the house. Things like that.

Puck and Sam worked all week at the Mulholland drive shoot. It was for a site called ‘The Hut’ that sold men’s, women’s and kids apparel all online. They made a little less than they had in Chicago, but they still cleared over a hundred an hour for the shoot. The days were kind of long, they had to be there at ten every day and didn’t usually make it home until after eight in the evening. The good thing about that was that they missed the worst part of the traffic. Sam, Noah and I managed to eat together every night, even if that meant we didn’t eat until nine, rather than right at six. We made love every night, and we slept wrapped around each other all night every night.

Paul Weitz was a man of his word. When filming didn’t wrap until almost nine Friday night, he paid for the ticket change fees for all three of us. He also threw in a five thousand dollar bonus which made me really happy. I don’t know if my boys realized it, but they had passed my earning by by the time we left Chicago. They really didn’t have to take jobs every day. Probably they did it to make sure they wouldn’t be bored waiting for me every evening. They were well on the way to earning twice what I had earned that summer.

We made it to Florida to find that we had missed the opening dinner. But we were there for all the Saturday and Sunday events. Hannah was as pleasant as usual. I was shocked to find that she had brought Dr. Reggie with her again. He was just as much fun as the year before. He confided in me that he and Hannah were no longer seeing each other, but Hannah had talked him into accompanying her again because of Daddy’s comments about her always having different men with her at every reunion. Aunt Arielle had some delightful comments to make about the fact that we missed the opening dinner, but Aunt Amanda stood up for me even before Mom could.

“Arielle, get over it. Life happens, they were working. I know because Danica had me watch the twins while she changed their tickets. Hannah spent the whole opening dinner embarrassing herself and pissing off her other female cousins…yet again. So it’s not like MeDe and the boys missed something new. Why don’t you go prove your superior mothering skills with the child God actually gave you and leave the rest of us the hell alone? You and your fucking perfect daughter are the reason Ethan and I never bring our son with us to these things. You’re both just stuck up bitches and so damn color struck I don’t want you to negatively influence him even for three days a freakin’ year.” I think we all stood there shocked for a long ass minute. Amanda started to look embarrassed. “Sorry, usually I can just ignore her…but this year, it’s the hormones. Next year Adam will be getting a brother or sister.”

That set us all off in a whole new way. We were so very happy for her and Uncle Ethan. Then Mom gave Puck some great news, “Well since we’re all in such a great mood, I have your mom’s permission to relay some really great news for you Noah.” She said smiling. “That Discover Scholarship you applied for, the ten grand a year one…” he still looked like he didn’t know what she was talking about. “The one that they give to students who had a significant ‘roadblock to graduation’…” recognition finally dawned. “Yeah, that one…You got it.”

“Sweet!” he crowed. Sam and I gave him big hugs and deep, sweet kisses in congratulations. We were so happy for him. Since Mr. Cohen was handling Sam’s tuition, and my parents had put enough to pay my tuition for all for years no matter where I went in the continental United States, Puck was the one of us with the greatest financial need for college. He had done his own college saving and Becah had put away what she could, but he’d always put more away for Sarah than he ever had for himself. And when he’d started saving for Beth, he hadn’t taken a dime of the portion that he’d set aside for Sarah. Noah may never have been the most sensitive of guys, but he was an amazing big brother and Abah.

We flew back to LA on Sunday. Maddie had been great. She had taken care of McConaughey for us over the two days, so we fed her before she went home. Our first week in Hollywood really cemented for me the idea that we were meant for that life. Of course into every life some rain must fall…and who ever said that it never rains in Southern California told a damn lie.


	6. Drama, Love, Relationships (Babyface) & My Little Girl (Tim McGraw)

Chapter 6  
Drama, Love, Relationships (Babyface)

Puck Point of View

I fucking hate Los Fucking Angeles. The first week we were there, everything was cool. We were making cheddah and chilling. The house was tight, neighborhood straight…and Mills’ homegirl was mad cool. I wasn’t exactly a dog person, but McConaughey wasn’t that bad. Everything was alright. But when we got back from Cedes’ family reunion, it was almost as if the fucking fates were conspiring against us. That Monday Sexy Mama had to be back on set at five. I had to be at an early morning shoot all the way down in Irvine, and Sam had to be in Huntington Beach for an underwear shoot at ten. My shoot went fine. I was actually just modeling hard hats. It was outside all day long and hot as hell, but it wasn’t a difficult shoot. The pay was pretty okay, right at a hundred an hour. I talked to one model who was grumbling about the shoot. He was trying to get into actual fashion modeling, which I didn’t really understand. I mean yeah if you got famous you got paid, but until you became a household name, you didn’t make diddly squat. Catalogue and print work paid more if you were just hitting the business, or working in it temporarily. But all in all, Tyler was an okay guy.

The shoot ended at sundown, which sucked because Sam had the car and he was nowhere near finished. So I decided that rather than waiting until the end of never for him to get to me, I’d just take a bus and meet him at his shoot. We’d done something similar in Chicago a time or two when we had separate shoots. It wasn’t too bad a ride, only took me an hour on the train and another like fifteen minutes on the bus. Thankfully I had my phone and could play some Angry Birds and Words with Friends with Tess and Jake. Sam and I had gotten into the habit of telling each other where we were going to be whenever we weren’t working at the same site. It just made sense. When I got there, I had a weird feeling. The feeling only got worse as I got off the elevator and saw a whole bunch of people outside the studio. A couple of them were easily identifiable as makeup or the photog assistants, even other models but Sam wasn’t among them. It didn’t take much to blend in and then slip into the studio. I watched the female photographer putting her hands on Sam. I grabbed my phone and videoed her as she started talking to him about how it didn’t matter that he had someone at home…she never had to know. Sam was trying to get away from her but the bitch had backed him pretty much into a corner.

“Wow…real professional Ms. Photographer.” I said to announce my presence as she tried to kiss him. “Not to mention amazingly not desperate. He told you that he was taken. I gathered that much from what you were saying. Even if I hadn’t gotten that shit on tape, I’d know it anyway since I’m one of the someones he has at home. Now could you please back away from my muthafucking boyfriend, before I post this video to YouTube and see if it helps or hinders your career?”

She stood back and looked over at me and over at Sam. “I was simply trying to evoke the proper look from Sam.” She defended. “I needed a more sensual look and he wasn’t giving it to me.”

I scoffed. “Really, cause the only look I saw on his face when I walked in was fear.” I told her honestly. “Goykhman used us six or seven times, never once did he have trouble remaining professional and getting Sam to give him which ever look he was going for that time. So either Goykhman’s just that much better than you, or you’re just an aging chick trying to get her jollies by seducing a younger man.”

She looked pissed as hell, but I didn’t give a rat’s ass. “I can make sure that your boyfriend doesn’t work in this town again.” She hissed.

I shrugged. “You can try, but we’re only here for another couple of weeks anyway…not to mention that this little tape could do a lot more damage to you than you could do to Sammy Boy.”

She growled, “Fine, send the crew back in so we can get this shoot wrapped.”

Without saying another word, I walked out and told them that she was ready for them. I headed down and found where Sam had parked. I sat on the hood and tried to figure out why I was still so fucking mad. I texted Mercedes to tell her to go ahead and eat and go to bed, Sam was still on his shoot and I was waiting on him to finish. She texted me back and said that she was still at the studio, she had walked McConaughey at her lunch and dinner breaks, but she wasn’t sure when they would wrap for the night. Sam didn’t come down until close to midnight. I had taken the car and run and gotten something to eat around ten thirty. Food didn’t help the anger all that much. It did help me to organize my feelings. I was angry yes…but mainly I was fucking disappointed. All he had to do was tell the chick he wasn’t interested. He told her he was involved, but the way he’d said it made it seem like if he was free he’d have been on her like a shark on chum. That pissed me the fuck off. Because that kind of thinking led to resentment…it meant that he wasn’t as invested in our relationship as Cedes and I were. We didn’t even see anyone but each other…but him. What the fuck did he see?

So when he got into the car, I asked him exactly what was on my mind. “Why the hell didn’t you tell that bitch that you didn’t want her ass?” He looked at me like he was confused. “When she was pushing up on you…all you had to do was look at her and tell her to step off. You didn’t want her ass. Instead you let her push you up against some dumb ass ladder and get so close to your fucking face she was breathing on you.”

“I didn’t know what to say to get her to move.” He defended. “I need to make money more than you or Mercy this summer. If I’d have pissed her off, what was I gonna do, go work at Hunk’o’Mania?” he asked sounding shocked.

“She couldn’t blackball you without a reason, and you suing her for sexual harassment would make any reason she gave sound like sour grapes.” I shot back. “But even so, I get that you don’t like the fucking thought of us paying your way…you’ve got your fucking pride…I get it. But fuck your pride if it means letting some bitch disrespect me and Cedes cause she wants your dick and has a position of a little bit of power.”

“I-I – I mean…that isn’t what…”

“That is exactly what the fuck you were doing. It might not have been what you were meaning to do, but it is what the fuck was happening. Then your bullshit defense. ‘I’m …I’m involved…I have a girlfriend…’ but you were looking at her like that skinny, flat chested broad was actually hot. What the fuck was up with that?” I ranted.

“She wasn’t hot she was skinny, she had no ass and her hips were actually thinner than mine. I was trying to fix my face into the look she wanted so she would be happy.” Sam shouted back. “I wanted to wrap up the shoot with as little damn drama as possible, but she wouldn’t leave me alone. She was worse than Santana ever was and you know how bad Tana could be back when we dated. I have never been so grateful to hear your voice as I was when you got that woman to back off of me. I kept wondering if this was how Mercy felt at Tana’s party last year. If it is man, I want to kick Tinsley’s ass even worse. I mean, nobody should ever know how it feels to be trapped like a literal animal.”

I tried very hard not to think about that shit. I mean, Cedes seemed to have moved past it after the trial and the dickhead’s sentencing. We weren’t the ones that got grabbed and grinded on, so I guess I kind of felt like we had no right to feeling more than protective or whatever. “I get it…you were scared of the chick…but why? She was nowhere near as scary as Santana, let alone Quinn.” I grumbled.

“Yeah, but Ms. Darling could have caused me a lot of trouble making money. We’re really close to being able to get Mercy’s ring this year rather than having to wait to next. I was trying to make sure that she didn’t fuck everything up.” Sam defended.

I probably would have said something else, but we turned onto N. Fairview and there were cop cars in front of the house we were sitting. “What the fuck?” we said at the same time as Sam hurriedly parked.

“Mercedes?” we both shouted as we rushed to the front steps.

“I’m sorry, boys, but do you know that chick?” a tall thin white cop asked. “She was stopped letting herself into that house.”

“Yes. We’re housesitting for the Mays.” Sam said giving the cop a look that basically asked if he was stupid. “She has keys and the alarm code…because all three of us are supposed to be here for the next three weeks.”

“You can contact the realtor who hired us…Madeline St. Clair, or even just ask the woman who lives next door. Maddie introduced her to all three of us the day we arrived.” I said, trying not to sound like I was being an asshole. Fucking hate cops though.

“It was a neighbor who reported suspicious activity at this house for the last few nights.” The other cop said with a smarmy smirk.

“You’re telling me that Ms. Mahan, Stephanie Mahan, the woman who lives at 408,” Sam gestured to the slightly different Spanish colonial house next door, “the woman who loves Mercy’s red velvet cupcakes so much she asked Mercy to make her a batch just for herself called to report suspicious activity…from her fifth date with a pretty blonde lawyer…a date that she was hoping was going to be so successful she wouldn’t see us again until Tuesday or Wednesday?”

The first cop was starting to catch the point that we were legit. He opened his iPad and pulled up a screen. “The call was from another neighbor.” He said quietly. “Let me get the name of the person who hired you again.” He pulled Sam to the side. It didn’t take him long to get Maddie on the phone.

The other cop was looking at me like he wanted to try to run me in. I ignored him with a roll of my eyes and tried to go to Mercedes. “Where do you think you’re going kid?”

“To my woman. She’s been on set since six this morning. She has gotta be tired as hell and you’ve got her sitting on those cold stone steps instead of inside chillin; like she should be after being at work for eighteen hours.” I told him.

“I don’t think so. You’re gonna stay right here until this is all settled. Not going to let you to talk and get your stories straight.” He scoffed.

“Oh please. You and your partner already have already taken Cedes’ story and Sam just corroborated it. We’re telling you the truth.”

“Thought the blond said her name was Mercy.” Asshole Cop shot back.

“Her name, as I’m sure you know is Mercedes Antoinette Jones…birthday February fourteenth nineteen ninety four…hometown Lima, Ohio. We’re here in LA because she is making a movie over on the Warner Brothers Lot. My guess is she even showed you her driver’s license and her lot ID card.” I took a moment to read and memorize his badge number. “We’re telling the truth, Officer Furham. Now please let me go sit with our girlfriend because you know as well as I do that your partner is going to come over here and take you back to your cars, because there is nothing going on here. The both of you would probably be sitting in a squad car with a dozen Krispey Kremes and coffee right now, but some dickhead saw a black girl in white neighborhood and didn’t take the time to see past the color of her skin.”

Almost as if I had called him back over the other cop came over. “Come on Mark. The girl’s story checks out. They are here until the twenty-fourth/twenty-fifth. The family will be back on the twenty eighth.”

I went around Asshole Cop and went over to Mercedes. I gave her a thorough look over. I have never trusted cops…especially not when it came to their treatment of people with brown skin, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to start trusting them when it was My Girlfriend with the brown skin. She read me like a book. “I’m okay Noah.” She rushed to assure me. “They weren’t too bad. It was just kind of scary…I mean, you hear shit all the time. I’m not gonna lie and say that I wasn’t happy as hell to see you two pull up.” She said leaning into me. “How did it happen that both your shoots ran so late?”

I rolled my eyes. Sam joined us, doing a quick Mercy check as well. “You okay Baby?”

We locked up the car and let ourselves in. Since I was still more than a little pissed, I took the pooch for his midnight constitutional. I let him take a dump on 404’s yard since I was pretty sure that it was that dickhead that had called the cops. When I got back, Sam and Cedes were both showered, but they were sitting in the great room waiting on me. Sam was seated on the coffee table facing Mercedes, and she was on the couch, barely touching him. “Sam told me about the photographer lady.” She said quietly.

I nodded, joining them. “What do you think of the whole situation?”

“I think that you are both simultaneously right and both wrong at the same time.” She waited for us both to stop scoffing. “I mean it. Sam…what Puck saw worried him not just because he was a little jealous, but also because if you did want her and were only saying no to her because you’re with us…it would breed resentment and eventually you might decide that we were holding you back from having all the women who want you. He was probably also worried that I would hear this and assume that you had satisfied some fetish fantasy or something with me and were looking at skinny white chicks as a return to sanity.” She turned to me. “Puck, Sam has had to swallow his pride so much that anyone else would have choked on it by now. He just wants to contribute to our household. To do that he has to keep a job. This modeling thing is working well for him. It makes him way more money that delivering pizzas ever could have and it is different enough from day to day that he doesn’t get bored. You know that Sam and I have said that we can’t truly understand the relationship between you and Paul because we have great dads.” I nodded. She continued. “This is just like that. You and I just can’t understand his fears about money. I know you probably get it more than I do, but your mom always managed to keep your heads above water. We might not be able to completely get his fears, but what we can do is acknowledge that he has them, try to empathize with his feelings and help him to work at keeping them at bay.”

I cocked my head to look at Sam. I had always assumed that it was a pride thing, not fear…fear I could actually understand better. Sam was scared of ending up broke and homeless again just like I was scared of ending up being anything at all like Paul Puckerman. No wonder he had wanted to not piss off that bitch. We spent the rest of the night talking shit through. We finally made love in the wee hours…well Sam and I made love to Sexy Mama…we kind of fucked each other until we got our anger out of our systems. I was tired as fuck the next day. Thankfully, Sam and I were set up to do an afternoon shoot on La Cienega Boulevard. It was for an adult novelty store. They were trying to rebrand the store as a playland for all grown people, not just the skeevy, pervy ones. There were a bunch of model types, for the shoot. The ‘married couple looking for adventure’, a group of chicks in dresses looked like the ‘bridal shower party’ crew, Sam and I were the ‘first timers’, and there was an older couple of women, not sure what they’re supposed back story was, but in reality they were cougars on the prowl. Sam shut them down with authority. The best part of that job wasn’t just the fact that they were paying two hundred an hour for a six hour shoot, but we also got to leave with some product in a gift bag.

The rest of the week we got up early, took care of the mutt, got breakfast and went to work. We had a free day from BMG on Thursday, so Sexy Mama took us on set and we did some extra work for the day. It was nice, we had lunch with her and Ms. Scott and Malik Yoba…that was real cool. He was chill as hell. He pulled me to the side and asked me what Cedes’ mom’s name was, and he had me take a video of him saying hello and telling her about how nice and talented Cedes was and I sent it to her. Not two minutes after I hit send, my phone rang.

“Noah, you know you’re my favorite, right.” She cooed. “How did you know that I love Malik Yoba?”

“Your favorite is whichever one of us you’re talking to.” I laughed. “I didn’t know, but Mercedes did it. She didn’t want to ask him for an autograph. She figured it would be unprofessional or whatever. But she told him that you liked him and he just asked me to record his message and send it to you.”

“Tell him thank you very much from me. And tell MeDe thanks also. Also, Noah some of the scholarships that you three applied for have come in. Do you all want us to open them for you, our wait until you guys come home next month?”

I did a quick check with Sam and Cedes and told them to just open them all, send back anything that needed to be returned and let us know where we stood. “I mean, if we need to make some extra change, we’d do better to know about it now rather than later.”

“Alright, your mom was hoping you’d say that, she has a whole spread sheet ready and waiting.” We shared a laugh, “You think I’m kidding…it has the ones that we already knew about all slotted in and even does the math to tell give us a running tally of how much you’ll need come move in.” I just shook my head at my mother’s love of spreadsheets, and we said our goodbyes as I had to go back to work. At the end of the day of shooting, Ms. Scott offered to take us to dinner as she had some things she had to discuss with us about the soundtrack.

We found ourselves at Morton’s Steakhouse, a very hoity-toity restaurant not far from the studio. Sam and I figured we were really lucky, we happened to have our jackets with us because we weren’t sure what would be needed for the shoot that day. The maître d’ seated us quickly; I mean we were with Jill Scott. As soon as we ordered our appetizers, she hit us with her news. “I’d like the three of you to write a song for the soundtrack. Lyor is fully on board, he thinks it will be a great way to increase your exposure since the sound track won’t hit until after your first album drops. It needs to be about someone fighting against all odds, never sure if they are even going to win the fight, but still refuses to give up. In addition to song the three of you do together; there will be three songs for Mercedes as Lillian, and two Lillian/Vivianne duets.”

We all exchanged looks. “Wow.” I said quietly. “That is awesome.”

“That’s so cool.” Mercedes smiled big and bright. “Thank you.”

Sam cosigned the thanks with some gratitude of his own. But Ms. Scott stopped us with a grin. “Don’t thank me yet. The solos and duets have all been written…but we need your song by August seventeenth.”

We all exchanged looks. “We’re moving to New York either that week or the week before.” I said cautiously.

“We’re in Seattle for Sam’s family reunion the weekend after filming wraps.” Sexy Mama pointed out.

Sam nodded. “Noah and I have shoots set for right up until we fly out of here on that Friday. Mercy, you’d have to concentrate on the lyrics.”

“I think I have a bass line in my head that would be perfect,” I told them excitedly. It had been all wrong for the stuff we’d written so far for our album, but something told me it would be great for a song about fighting against all odds. We paused in our discussion as the waiter returned with our appetizers. Ms. Scott had the Maine Lobster cocktail. Sam got the short rib steak tacos, Sexy Mama went with the jumbo lump crab cakes, and I got the prosciutto wrapped mozzarella. We ordered our salads and entrees and returned to our thought processes. “Cedes, that piano solo intro you were playing around with on your iPad…”

She started humming it and I added in the riff in my head. Sam grabbed out a pen and paper and started timing the bars out. Our first step in figuring the drum line out…sometimes I wished I had let Finn teach me to play the drums like he kept offering. Ms. Scott offered in some ideas on the piano line and she and Mercedes actually pulled out Sexy Mama’s iPad and worked that shit out right at the table. Hell by the time we finished dinner we had the bridge and the chorus worked out, lyrics and all. It was an amazing experience. A couple of times, I just sat back and watched Sam and Mercedes go, and I was overwhelmed by such love…I realized in that moment that no matter how much certain things about LA might suck major ass; there was nothing, no amount of drama, no amount of skinny bitches trying to push up on either of us…and yes it happened to Sexy Mama too, she just never realized it…I wouldn’t have traded that time together on our own, making our own way, paying our dues…for anything in the world. I grabbed a pen, one verse down, two or three more to go.

My Little Girl (Tim McGraw)  
Azimio Point of View

A baby was born on July fifteenth. It was a girl. She had big brown eyes, ten fingers and ten toes…the mother said that I was the father. I said I would be the father if the test came back and said she was mine. Before she was even given to her mom, she was swabbed and so was I. Given the fact that I wanted full custody of the baby if she was mine, and my mother and father were backing me on that, and the fact that the baby’s mother claimed that she wasn’t going to have me take her baby, the court mediator had pulled some strings and made sure that old girl couldn’t take the baby from the hospital until the results were in. We’d tried mediation during the pregnancy, it hadn’t ended well.

Waiting was pure hell. I was so conflicted that it was fucking pathetic. Part of me wanted the baby to be mine. She had grabbed my heart when she grabbed my finger, and unlike my pointer, she still hadn’t let it go. Part of me knew that being a single dad was going to be hard as hell, even with Moms and Dad having my back. Dad was pretty mad at me when I told him that I might be a father already. But as soon as he heard the whole story he joined me in my crusade. I was determined that if the baby was mine, I would be raising her. Well, my parents and me. My determination was only cemented when I met Wachovia Robinson, age thirty-three…Alizay Robinson’s, my probable baby mama, mother, and her grandmother Mo’Nique Robinson, her forty-nine year old grandmother. My daughter was not going to grow up to be the fourth generation to have a baby before she graduated high school. If that was a hypocritical thought to have, well just sign me up for the Republican party…cause that was how I felt.

The weird thing was that while Alizay and her mother were fighting my parents and me tooth and nail, Mo’Nique was on our side. She even stopped Alizay from naming the baby until it was decided if I was the father and then made her agree to make sure that I had input in the name. The test results took forty-eight to seventy-two hours to come back, but my mother was sure that the baby was mine. At least she was after she held her for the first time. Apparently the baby looked like I had as a newborn. Don’t know how she could know that when she looked all squishy and bobble-headed to me…cute as hell, but she did not exactly have the most distinguishable features. Those were the longest forty-eight hours of my life. I was at the hospital whenever I wasn’t at work. The judge’s decision was hinging on the test results too. I mean everything was in and all motions filed… all depositions taken…I had nothing to do but wait and fall more in love with a little girl who might not even be mine. Just because I’d slushied so many people in my life, I was sure that God would want to fuck with me and make the labwork take the entire seventy-two hours.

Even when the mediator finally met with us, both Alizay and her family and me and mine, I wasn’t sure if I would be relieved or disappointed if the answer was no. In the end that was a moot point. The baby was mine. I looked over at the girl I’d be connected with for the rest of my life. The look on her face was one of relief, but fear. It had come out in the mediations that there were at least three other guys she had had sex with the same week she’d slept with me. Apparently I was the lucky one because she made the others pull out. In reality I was the lucky one because she hadn’t given me anything permanent but a baby. The paternity test wasn’t the only test I had been sweating the results of during this whole disaster…I’d had the whole battery of STD tests. Seven days of antibiotics later and I was free and clear and determined that I wasn’t having sex without a condom again until I was fucking married.

The mediator also took the results to the judge. I felt like I had gotten lucky with the judge in the case. Her name was Judge Maxine Shaw. She usually only dealt with family law cases involving criminal prosecution, but for some reason she was adjudicating our custody case. Alizay’s mother had pissed her off early in the process by trying to claim that all fathers were automatically bad parents. Judge Shaw shut that shit down real quick. “Woman, I’ve seen mothers that actually deserved to be waterboarded in this court room…don’t try to play that sista-solidarity crap either.” Then she had turned to me. “You knocked up a seventeen year old girl at a house party…please tell me why I should hold you in any higher esteem than you seem to hold her?”

I looked her in the eye and told her the truth. “You probably shouldn’t. I didn’t do anything different than she did. I met someone and had unprotected sex with her within a few hours of meeting her. Granted she is the only girl I’ve had sex with in the last six months…not within the same seven day period…but you’re right I wasn’t any more responsible than she was. But this isn’t about her or about me. It’s about the little girl that needs to be raised to know that she shouldn’t behave that way…and not to be mean your honor, I don’t think she will get that in the Robinson house.”

Judge Shaw ignored the outraged gasps and sputtering of the younger Robinson women. “Why do you think that?” she said quietly.

I hesitated. The voice that took control of the silence wasn’t unexpected given the way mediation had gone, but I could tell the Judge was still surprised. “I’ll say it, ‘cause the poor boy has been raised too right to say it himself. Judge, I’m only forty nine years old, have never been married or even engaged and have six different kids by four different men, two of whom were married when I got pregnant. My oldest daughter, she has even me beat, eight kids, eight different fathers one of whom is doing time for beating on her and her kids. My younger daughters aren’t that far behind her either… Alizay was supposed to be different; she was supposed to get out of this cycle. Well she didn’t…in fact she claims she’s only been sexually active for a year and yet from what she said, her partner count is already higher than mine. I want better for my great granddaughter. That little girl has already got something none of the rest of us have had…a daddy who wants her. Maybe if she grows up with the Adams, she’ll graduate high school and go to college like her daddy…rather than just having kid after kid after kid.”

The judge looked like she wanted to say something but in the end she simply said that she would take everything under advisement. The test took forty-eight hours to come back, the mediator read us the results, confirming that she was my baby…it took the judge less than an hour after she received the results to make her ruling. We did it by teleconference from a special conference room at the hospital. The room was usually used for hearings for people too injured to appear in the courthouse. It was on the same floor as the ‘prisoner’ section, the rooms where they bring inmates who needed medical treatment; Lima’s county jail didn’t have an infirmary. As I was walking down the hall to the conference room, I saw something that made me back track. “Whoa, Dad…is that Tinsley?”

My father looked into the room and smirked. “That kid who put hands on the little Jones girl from church?” I nodded. “It looks like him.” He said quietly and went to ask the guard on duty what the story was. “Yep. Apparently, after having three altercations at the juvenile level, his sentence was reviewed, revised and he was sent on up to county to await transfer to Toledo…dumbass kept taking his anger issues out on the smaller kids in juvie, and when he got to county, he tried to run that same stuff on the other cons headed for level four incarceration, and got his ass handed to him. He’ll be here until he is ready for the facility up state.”

I shook my head. “He still looks better than I looked after Zizes finished with me.”

“Well, I always told you not to let your mouth write a check your ass couldn’t cast.” He laughed. “I owe that girl a cookie or something…she finally did what your mother and I couldn’t manage…she taught you to think about other peoples’ feelings before you opened your big mouth.”

We shared a chuckle. It was the usual type of conversation we had whenever Dad was trying to keep my mind off of something major. The tradition had apparently started all the way back when I was getting my shots as a kid. Make me laugh so I didn’t think about the needle. Make me laugh so I don’t fear hearing what the judge is going to say. My daughter was born at eleven thirty eight, Monday July fifteenth…and here it was Friday the nineteenth and I was still waiting to see if she was going to be able to go home with me.

I had cleaned out my ‘play room’…the room with my video game system and all my trophies and shit…we hadn’t actually bought anything yet, just a car seat. I figure even if I only get some visitation I’ll need that. I had saved every dollar I earned that summer to make sure that I could get her what she needed…I’d even gone online and looked at baby things like a crib and changing table and the like. Tuesday morning, Mom had gone and bought diapers and some other baby stuff. She had run into Sister Jones and been told to give her a call if I got custody; they had tons of baby girl clothes that her twins had already out grown. I couldn’t even think about the fact that they had outgrown tons of clothes in like three or four months. I was going to be broke for real.

I was so scared that I wouldn’t be though. The thought of my little girl growing up thinking that having a baby every other year by a different dude each time was…I mean lots of people did it, but I grew up in a home with my mom and my dad…I guess I knew that people did live their lives like that, but in my mind those weren’t real people…they were those ghetto, hoodrat folks…not me or anyone I really knew. I just wanted my daughter to make, I hesitate to say better choices, but yeah…better choices. I was so busy chasing my thoughts round my head, I almost missed it when Judge Shaw came on the screen and started to speak.

“I want to begin by saying that this was the easiest custody case I’ve ever done. No one had caused the child any pain, or even really caused each other any pain. That being said, it was also the hardest because for the most part it was two parents wanting to do what was best for their child. My decision in this case seemed to be choosing which lifestyle is better for the child. I’m not one to cast aspersions on other people for how they choose to live their lives, but Ms. Mo’Nique was correct when she said that the unhealthy cycle of the women in that family needed to stop. Mr. Adams, I think that you and your family can help that little girl become so much more than she would have been if she grew up with her mother as the primary custodial parent. I award full custody of the minor child, to be named in the next fifteen minutes or I will reconsider, to the child’s biological father, Azimio Zion Adams. The mother, Alizay Vernice Robinson will have visitation, every other weekend, supervised by her grandmother and or the baby’s paternal grandmother until the child is four years old, or Mr. Adams has completed college, at which time we will reevaluate the visitation arrangement.”

We agreed to the terms, and she told us that we needed to come by the courthouse and sign the paperwork by close of business. Ms. Mo’Nique turned to me and asked a question that I didn’t think I had an answer for, “So what is her name?”

Before I had a conscious thought I opened my mouth and said “Robyn Zoe Adams.” In that moment, I knew that I no longer had any life without my baby girl. I was going to keep my shit together and make sure that she ended up like my mom or Sister Jones…she was going to have the best future I could possibly give her. There was no longer any doubt in my mind that I loved that little girl and I could finally admit that if she had turned out not to be mine, I’d have probably lost all desire or determination to do well myself. She was only four days old, but she was already my Angel, and I was going to be great just for her.


	7. Endless Summer Nights (Richard Marx) & Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me (U2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bless You Illy and Kay...My own personal Beta Angels...who just happen to be Alpha Bitches. You're Rockstars!

Chapter 7

Endless Summer Nights (Richard Marx)  
Mercedes Point of View  
Life in LA was crazy and hectic…a total constantly-on-the-go type lifestyle for the three of us, and for the most part, I loved every minute. I had been filming every single day from six am to midnight most days since we got back from Florida. When I was really honest with myself, I could admit that I would have been better served staying in LA and filming over that weekend. I didn’t really connect with my Harris relatives and while things were definitely getting better, I would have benefitted from staying and working far more than I did from laughing at Aunt Arielle’s pouting. As for the guys, thanks to their positive experience and bonding with the photographer guy when they were modeling in Chicago, Sam and Noah never lacked for work even in the far more competitive city. In fact, we worked our asses off pretty much every day. That last week we were in LA we only managed to get one break and it was to have dinner with Ryan and the Cohens. We were finally able to catch up with Ryan and we found out why he had gone off the grid.

He and his girlfriend, Marissa, had been run off the road by a dickhead that they both had some serious drama with. Marissa had been killed and Ryan was, understandably angry and hurt and upset. Dudeguy, some prick named Volchek, had even been drunk off his ass making the whole travesty even worst. Puck and Sam had gone to see him after they wrapped a shoot early over in Newport Beach. Puck swore that when Seth showed them into Ryan’s pool house, he was having a damn near a full-on psychotic break. They forced him to take a shower and talk to them. I didn’t find out what happened from there for a few days. I’m not sure when or if they would have told me what else went down if Kirsten Cohen hadn’t emailed Mom for our contact information. Kirsten and Sandy were so happy that Puck and Sam had been able to pull Ryan out of his depression and get him to focus on moving forward, that they wanted to take the three of us out to dinner as a thank you.

It was while we were at dinner at the super posh Newport Club, which was owned by Kirsten’s father, that I realized why Sam and Puck had returned from their visit with bruised knuckles and battered ribs. After talking with Ryan, Seth, thinking that knowing what would happen to Volchek might make Ryan feel better, convinced them to go and talk to the officer who had handled the accident. While they were talking to the cop, they found out that Volchek had skipped bail the day before. The four of them and Marissa’s best friend and Seth’s girlfriend, Summer, went all Nancy Drew and the Hardy boys on the case. Sam called his cousin’s whose super computer savvy boyfriend tracked the asshole down and the quintet went and found the guy.

Asshat didn’t want to go to jail for what would be his third strike which would turn the possible ten years into a life sentence. Ryan, with help from his friends found said felon, called him on his bullshit and returned him to the system. Seth had given the parents, what was definitely, a very cleaned up version of events. But I had enough information to extrapolate the full tale. Not sure how the parents bought what he was selling considering that Ryan was sitting there with a broken nose, still swollen lip and two black eyes. But it may have just been that they were so happy he was ready to move forward and go to college that they just weren’t going to rock the boat. So happy, in fact, that by the time we ordered dessert, Kirsten was asking for Mills info so that she and Sandy could get Ryan set up as our first official tenant.

I was more than pleased to give them Mills’ business email. I knew that the parents were currently shouldering the full financial burden for the duplex, so the quicker we got people paying rent in those downstairs units, the better. Besides Ryan was a really good guy…completely valid violent tendencies aside. Best of all the parents, had met him under much less rushed circumstances than they would probably meet any of the other prospective tenants. And the Cohens were planning to pay the full rent of the apartment for the first year, or until Ryan met someone who he wanted as a roommate. Really, I was just grateful that he would be getting out of the area where almost all of his memories included his dead girlfriend…that would be enough to drive someone crazy.

After that we had dinner at the single most impressive country club…or whatever it was... I’d ever seen. For a moment my mind was snared by the uncomfortable feeling that had encompassed me at the start of the evening. When we left the house, I was feeling very confident and totally gorgeous. Then we got there, and while I’d worn a gorgeous plum cocktail dress that was simply stunning with its beaded one-shoulder silhouette, I felt a little out of place. The dress’ sheer flutter sleeve gave the curve skimming silhouette a graceful, slightly whimsical touch. My shoes were even better. They were a pair of Michael Kors Mavis evening sandals with a four inch heel and rhinestone embossed leather cage style look. Mom had passed them to me when she was pregnant with the twins and not wearing heels…I may have forgotten to return them. But it was a good thing I did. I was dressed to the nines, and still felt a little underdressed at the Newport Club. It was a daunting feeling. I hadn’t liked it at all. I shook those thoughts off to turn my attention to my lovers.

“So you two went with Ryan and, what, beat the breaks off of old dude?” I asked as I changed my shoes so we could take McConaughey for his last walk of the night.

Sam looked just a little sheepish. “In our defense, the guy was packed and ready to skip town when we found him, Mercy.”

“Yeah. I mean dude was making a run for the border and I don’t mean he was going to Taco Bell.” Puck added. “Ryan was ready to drop the idea of college all together. He blamed himself almost as much as he blamed Volchek. He was on one hell of a self-destructive path.”

I stopped, turned and looked at the boy I had grown up with… a boy who despite having a great heart was still one of the least sensitive souls I had ever met. “A self-destructive path?”

“What? It sounded good when Dr. Phil had said it.” He defended. “Besides what else do you call it when a guy was planning to skip college; fight, drink and work himself into an early grave. He may have actually been more depressed than I was the summer after we gave Beth up. He had already done a pretty good job isolating himself from everyone who cared about him.”

“Hell…that might not have been on purpose…the smell alone might have been doing that.” Sam chuckled.

I poked Sam for his ill advised humor. But I also stopped and thought about Puck’s words for a moment. “That would definitely be considered a downward spiral.” I admitted.

“See.” Puck said pointedly. “Anyway…we couldn’t let that prick get away with that shit. I know that if God forbid, something like that ever happened to you, we’d have Jake, Finnessa, Chang, Harding, Tana, Kev and Dev, Tessa and Lauren… the parents…we have tons of help…if we hadn’t helped out, Atwood’s only backup was a girly girl and an even girlier dude. His brother is good people and all, don’t get it twisted, but Hummel punches harder than he does. We had to help him.”

I reached the conclusion that Puck was right. They would have had more help than they would have needed. “You forgot Artie, Blaine and Kurt.”

“Naw, they’d have stayed back to provide the rest of us our alibies. I mean, if you want to get away with murder, you let those three plot it out behind the scenes.” Sam said with a smile.

“Hells yeah. Not to mention that Artie would have no problem hacking any cameras and getting rid of any of that kind of evidence. They’d never be able to make anything stick.” We all laughed darkly.

“I’m not saying that you were wrong for helping…I just wish you’d figured out a way to help that didn’t put you at risk of getting arrested yourselves.”

“Yeah but Mercy, if we hadn’t gone with him and been there Volchek probably would have gotten away. He was kind of winning…probably because like Puck said, Ry felt responsible too. He feels like if he had dealt with Volchek in a more ‘definitive manner’, Seth’s words not mine, earlier then his Marissa would still be alive.”

“God, I feel so bad for him…I don’t know that I would do if anything happened to either of you. I think I’d lose my mind. I’m glad that you guys helped bring that Asshat to justice.” I said closing the conversation. The rest of the walk we spoke of lighter things. We hadn’t had any further issues with the other neighbor since the night the jerk had called the police, but we were still very leery and just didn’t bother with going over that way. Well except Puck…he liked to let the puppy poop on the guy’s yard. We went towards a nearby park and Sam found a stick and he let McConaughey chase it a few times before we corralled him back into the house.

While Puck settled McConaughey in his room, Sam and I locked up and set the alarm. We headed into our bedroom. After washing up, I quickly stripped down to my lingerie and hung my dress back in the closet. Puck joined us as we were finally fully relaxed. He leered only for a moment at us lying back on the bed making out, before he headed into the bathroom to wash his hands. Both Puck and Sam knew me well enough to know that they weren’t touching me with dog on their hands, even if we had bathed McConaughey twice a week the whole time we were there. As soon as Puck was naked, Sam and I opened our arms and enveloped him in our make out session. Our lovemaking that night was more intense and frenzied and yet, at the same time, more fun and playful. We were probably affirming our own happiness in the face of Ryan’s tragic loss. That sounded bad when I thought it, but we were human and knowing that we still had each other was truly something to celebrate, even as we were sad for our friend.

Puck trailed kisses down my neck, resisting the temptation of marking me as theirs. I was getting a little bit weary of having to be so careful of how we used our mouths on each other. None of us could have hickeys anywhere that would be seen. Sam and Noah’s bruising around their ribs had actually lost a little bit of money at their modeling gigs over the last few days we were in LA. They were doing a swimsuit shoot and the guys who did the tank tops and board shorts made twenty less an hour than the guys who could do the tiny shorts and go shirtless. It was still worth it, but they had definitely grumbled about it.

I lost the capability for real thought at that point as Sam and Noah both fastened their mouths to my nipples. I floated into a cloud of sensation and passion and I really didn’t come out of it until we were all fully sated and snuggling in the afterglow. I over slept and had to rush through my morning absolutions that Thursday morning. Original plans had me wrapping up my filming the day before, but with the rewrites, I didn’t get released until late Thursday evening. Our flight was scheduled for the next afternoon at three. I still wanted to deep clean the house and we needed to ship quite a bit of our stuff home. I was tired as hell, but we piled into the rental car and went to grab dinner, and a boat load of different size priority mail boxes. Friday, Noah got called for an extra shoot to replace some other ‘badass’ look model that had needed to call out. So Sam and I worked together and scrubbed the bottom floor from top to bottom. I took several days’ worth of left overs to Stephanie…she could cook, but really preferred not to cook for just herself. I didn’t want to leave a bunch of left overs in the May’s refrigerator, though I had made them a vegetarian dinner casserole and left it for them in the freezer. I washed down the interior of the fridge and then mopped Sam, McConaughey and myself into the back yard.

By the time Noah got back at a little after noon, we had that place, including the Jacuzzi and pool sparkling clean and all of our stuff packed. I left a nice note on the counter telling them thanks and including the directions for reheating the casserole along with a plate of chocolate and pecan candy that wouldn’t go bad in the few days before they arrived home to discover it. It only took us a few minutes to pack up the car. We had our boxes to ship back to Lima and our carryons and one larger piece of luggage…or guitar cases as the case may be… to take to the airport with us. After locking the house down and setting the alarm, we delivered the puppy and some toys and food to Stephanie. She made us take her contact information and promise to keep in touch…she was sure that the three of us were going to be huge and she wanted to be our website developer. I had seen some of her work, and we had no problem with utilizing her skills.

Finally, we were ready to leave. We were meeting Maddie at the airport, so that there would be someone over twenty one with us when we turned in the car. She was a straight up trip. Mrs. May’s friend had gone over to the house and by the time we met with Maddie, the bestie had asked that Maddie give us an extra grand each. Originally the May’s had set aside the money for Maddie to hire a maid before they came home…but we’d left the house in such amazing condition there was no longer any need for an additional cleaner. To be honest I was so happy that we’d been able to save the cost of renting a place or getting a hotel room the May’s almost didn’t need to pay us anything.

The flight from LA to Seattle was pretty short and thankfully non-stop. Our arrival time was just half an hour after the rest of the Evans clan and Sarah got there. Sander rented a mini-van and we all drove together. Sam had planned the weekend for the three of us. He knew me well enough to know that I was not camping out at the park like Sand-man, Gabs and Triple S. Instead he had rented us a room at the sort- of-nearby Port Townsend Inn. The rooms were older and needed to be updated in the worst way, but it was only for two nights and most of our time was slated to be spent at the park anyway. We were shocked when the lady at the desk told us that we were next door to someone in town for the Puckett family reunion as well. “I thought everyone was staying at the park.” Sam said quizzically.

Turns out that he wouldn’t have long to wait. As we passed the room before we got into our room, the door opened and a familiar face stuck her head out of the door. “Thank God. I was hoping it was you that was next door.” Samantha Puckett said hurriedly. The two cousins hugged. And a dark haired guy came to the door of the room holding a very small infant to his shoulder.

“Whoa…” I heard Sam breathe. “Are these the triplets?”

Gabby had raised holy hell about the kids continuing to watch iCarly as Samantha’s pregnancy had become apparent. But ultimately she realized that her cousin’s unexpected pregnancy was being handled well and very, very responsibly by the iCarly cast and rather than worry, she’d rather enjoyed being to kind of go through the changes with the younger girl. The two had become closer because Gabby was the only one in the family with multiples that girl-Sam trusted to tell her the truth. “Yeah, and they don’t sleep unless they are being coddled by music. Music that Fredward forgot to bring with us.”

Freddie looked over her shoulder and the look on his face told us exactly who had forgotten the music. “I have a great sleepy time play list on my mp3 player. It never fails to get my daughter to sleep.” Puck offered.

“God bless you…dude who’s shoving his dick up my cousin’s ass.” Samantha laughed.

“His name is Noah…but he goes by Puck.” Freddie chimed in. “Puck, if I can just hold your player for ten minutes, I’ll rip the play list to my laptop and bring it back.”

“No worries.” Puck said with a grin…but first we’re gonna need to hold those one of those babies. It’s been three weeks since we last saw my daughter, or Cede’s baby twin sisters.” he hurried to unlock our room door and set his stuff down. He was back with his player in moments and literally traded it for the baby boy that Freddie Benson had been bouncing on his shoulder.

Sam and I rushed to do the same. When we came back we each grabbed one of the two other fretful babies. Sam ended up with Theodore Carlson Puckett-Benson, while I found myself singing to Kateryna Johanna Puckett-Benson. Puck was playing with Teddy’s twin Edward Frederick. It took us an hour before girl-Sam and Freddie were finally able to steal their children back. Granted they only bothered because they wanted to put them in the portable cribs. The cousins had caught up as we played with the babies. Girl-Sam was an interesting person, almost equal parts Santana, Lauren, Boy-Sam and Puck. When we finally made it to our room for the night, I was happy to find that while the décor and finishings might be in desperate need of updating, everything was at least clean.

We were pretty quiet as we made love that night. None of us wanted to truly test the thickness of the walls with the babies on the other side. We played a little more in the shower as we were getting ready for the day. Much more relaxed and at ease, I lotioned everything and pulled on a pair of light cotton boy shorts and a matching bra, those were soon covered by a dark floral sleeveless romper with shorts that ended about halfway down my thighs. The look was completed with a pair of black, thong sandals with a cute flower at the top. My weave was still cut into a style too short for a ponytail, so I pulled it back and twisted it up and hoped that the clip would keep it in place. I grabbed my bag and tossed in my wallet, some sunscreen, and my super cute Kenneth Cole tiered ruffle, tankini. It was a gorgeous shade of berry pink that made my skin pretty much glow. I tossed in matching, elcheapo, pool area flip-flops and grabbed a pair of Noah and Sam’s board shorts and tossed them as well.

As I was trying to figure out if there was anything else I needed to shove in, Sam came back into the room from outside. “Samantha and Freddie wanted to know if you would mind coming over to help them finish getting the babies ready.” He asked when he saw that Puck was in the bathroom.

“So…in order for them to let you leave you had to promise to send reinforcements?” I teased.

He nodded emphatically. “While you were in the shower Samantha banged on the wall and told me to get my ass over there or she was sending the babies back with us. The worse thing is that Puck tried to hold me down just to see if she would.”

I chuckled a little. Puck was a sucker for cute babies and those three were pretty darn cute. “Not a problem. Sometime the twins are a lot for two people, I can’t imagine triplets. Oh, I’ve got swimsuits, and sunscreen in my bag, what am I forgetting?”

Sam looked thoughtful. “I’ll carry a change of clothes for each of us…things have been known to get messy at Puckett reunions. Oh and the beach towels. Plus you’ll want a sweater or jacket or something for after dark. Mom always does when we’re out here for them.”

I nodded and added a jacket to my bag and went to help the fresh graduates and even fresher parents. As soon as I walked in Sam pressed a screaming, wailing Kat into my arms. “Baby Sominex…please do something.” She begged.

I juggled the baby up onto my shoulder and started to sing. “He was a sexy lover man from the Chicago way. He had a hip hop style no one could take away. He was the top man of his craft…but then his number came up and he was gone with the draft…he’s in the army now all dressed in revelry…he is the boogie woogie bugle boy of company B.” I sang quietly. Thankfully it didn’t just work on Kat…it worked on Teddy and Eddie too. With them calm and quietly napping girl-Sam and Freddie were able to get the baby bags all organized and bottles readied and themselves together. My Sam and Puck swung through the room and we helped them get the kids down to their van. The van was big enough to seat us even with the three car seats. Sam texted Sander to let him know that we were riding in with the web show couple and their babies. After grabbing a ridiculous amount of food at a drive in restaurant, most of which was consumed by Noah and girl-Sam, we made our way from the quiet town of Port Townsend to Fort Flagler state park.

Puck, Freddie and I tried to pepper the cousins Sam with questions about what to expect at the family reunion, but all we got was a bunch of nothing. ‘You’ll see’, and ‘it’s hard to really explain’ and a few sentences that were started but dropped off only to end with, ‘it will make more sense after we get there’. The worst part was that by the end of the afternoon, Freddie, Puck and I agreed…the Puckett family wasn’t exactly explainable to anyone outside of it.

They were an interesting assortment of…well…criminals, for the most part. Every branch of the family seemed to have a few ‘white sheep’…those like Gabbie and her children, the ones without records. But most of them had done at least some time in juvie. Either for nuisance crimes, or for harder shit like Puck’s attempted ATM robbery. A large amount of them were hella aggressive and very violent, but they were an incredibly tight knit bunch. Once everyone had arrived, the huge family…there had to be at least three hundred people there…divided into five crowds. The first crowd was the pregnant women and infants. Including Gabbie who was barely showing, there were about eight preggos…their word not mine, and with the arrival of the Puckett-Benson triplets, there were nineteen babies under the age of two and eleven small children under four.

The next group was the five to fourteen group. There were a boat load of them, a hundred easy. Stacey, Stevie and Sarah had already amassed a little crew of about seven. They waved happily when they saw us, but kept chilling with their new homies. Near them, the fifty or so teens were all looking amazingly bored with the whole arrangement. I did not mind that they weren’t really acting all snooty and above it all, like most of the teens at McKinley. They were a little insular, sure, but they weren’t cliquish inside their age group. The largest group, however, were the adults. From eighteen or nineteen on up to mid to late fifties, they were the ones this event was for and you could tell. They were genuinely happy to see each other and catch up on what was going on with their lives. I was startled for a second by a woman who looked so much like a slightly younger Coach Sylvester that I had to do a double take. In the end I was sure that that must be Pam Puckett rather than Sue Sylvester, due to two very apparent facts. Pam wasn’t visibly pregnant, and Coach Sylvester was due in September so she had to be showing a lot by that point, and the fact that I don’t think Coach had ever worn a halter top, let alone booty shorts.

She was next to a really tall, broad shouldered dark haired guy that girl-Sam and my Sam both seemed very, very happy to see. “CARMINE!”

“Puckett, you’re gonna wake the babies.” Freddie moaned. “And don’t act like you didn’t just see Carmine and Chaz when they came to see the triplets. Still not sure how Carly managed to get Mrs. Obama to call and have the governor give them an escort to come to the hospital…but she did.”

Girl-Sam rolled her eyes. “I know…but I had just had a c-section. I was still all groggy and out of it. Besides, they weren’t really free yet, it was just a day pass.”

That did set off a multitude of introductions. Once everyone knew who everyone was, Carmine took a bullhorn to get things started. “Alright Pucketts and Puckett wedded or bedded…welcome to the twenty-seventh biennial Puckett family reunion. This shindig will last two days…today and tomorrow…here’s how it’s going down. This morning the adults will play ‘Capture the Flag,’ Blood versus Marriage in Battery Downs…that pertains to everyone who has graduated high school or who was supposed to have by now. Since this game has been known to get pretty fucking violent…preggos and Melanie…you little daffodil, you chicks will watch the kiddies.” He ignored the swat from Pam as she stood next to him. Apparently he was referring to her other daughter, Girl-Sam’s ‘white sheep’ twin. “Since you’re dealing with diaper changes and compressed bladders you guys will stay here in Wagon Wheel, near the welcome station and its indoor plumbing. The five to fourteen kids, you guys are in the Scout Camp…there are some games and such set up for you there, but to be honest, usually all of you end up playing your own version of capture the flag…so just have fun and go wild. No kid under eight comes back to Wagon Wheel unaccompanied. Teenagers…you guys can head over to the Retreat Center to go swimming and whatever. Grandparents…those of you over sixty five…not all the actual grandparents…you’re too old for me to tell you to do…so do whatever the hell you want.”

Pam snatched the bull horn from him. “Lunch is gonna be at twelve thirty at the food service area. Everyone not there on time…doesn’t get to eat, because there are never leftovers. After lunch…teenyboppers…you retched excuses for humanity…get to play ‘capture the flag’ in Battery Calwell while the grownups enjoy the beach. Preggos and kids you guys can hit the beach with us…we can’t trust the kids with the teens on the beach…we want everyone to go home alive…for the most part. We’ll have dinner at the food service area at six. Then we’ll all go to Wagon Wheel and shoot the shit until we’re ready to call it a night.”

I had to admit that it was a very interesting idea to me to have a huge, competition based event at a family reunion. The Jones Gatherings and the Harris Reunions often had little things like three legged races and the like, but for the most part those events were kids only. Then again, in the Harris family, chances were pretty good that if the adults played there would probably end up being a huge explosion of avarice and competitiveness and bad feelings and that would be the last Harris Family Reunion ever. I was really looking forward to seeing the big to-do; I can be quite competitive myself. But then Gabbie pulled me aside and asked if I would mind staying and helping with the babies. Three of the pregnant women were pretty close to term and would therefore not be a whole lot of help. “Besides, it might be best if you don’t see this side of Sam just yet.” I thought I heard her mutter under her breath.

I was in the process of trying to figure out exactly what that meant when I looked over at Sam, Noah and Freddie as they were heading to join the ‘battle’. Sam went total preemptive strike and tried to take out his new cousin by marriage before they even made it to the engagement area. Freddie, however, proved to be a perfect Puckett match. His biceps weren’t just for show either the boy wasn’t only smart, he was strong, too. He managed to deflect Sam’s attack and very quickly banded together with Sander and Noah. The trio’s alliance must have lasted the entire game, because when the adults joined the caregivers at the food service area, Sander was carrying the PUCKETT flag proudly. Those three were also looking the least worn and battered. The Sams and Gabbie were actually praised over lunch for having brought the best mates to the family.

“Those three are damn sure better than that the Jackass I got hitched to.” Pam praised. She then co-oped the praise by crowing, “My Sam sure knows how to pick ‘em. If only he were taller.”

Sam and Noah came loping over and picked me up to kiss me down. Fuck, I love kissing and being kissed by those two. We ate a very hurried lunch together and then my men dragged me off and we found a very quiet restroom area with a nice and large family restroom. It was way cleaner than I expected it to be. Puck quickly took a seat on the toilet and I rode him to completion while he and I drove Sam crazy with our mouths. When we were panting and trying to come back down from our orgasmic highs, we heard something outside the door that made us giggle. “Fuck Yeah, Princess Puckett. Can’t wait until I can be back inside you for real.” The easily recognizable voice groaned loudly.

“Guess we weren’t the only ones who got horny after the adrenaline high.” Puck whispered, before leaning forward to capture a still puckered nipple in between his teeth. I felt him surging back to life inside me.

“Is it wrong that I think it’s kind of hot, hearing them?” I asked as I slowly ground my hips, quickening Puck’s rebound.

Sam leaned forward and nibbled my ear lobe. “Bet you’ll think it’s even hotter if they can hear you.” He whispered. He lifted me off of Puck’s dick, while leaving me on Puck’s lap, trapping Noah’s cock between my pussy and Puck’s lower abdomen. Sam slid into me from behind, working his hips and fucking us both. He and Noah went to work making me scream and babble and cum over and over again. Finally I collapsed against Puck’s shoulder, all three of us sticky, sweaty and completely spent.

It took us a long minute to get our breath back. We gathered up our bags from the changing table and headed out to go to the showers next door. The second we opened the bathroom door, girl-Sam and Freddie were there applauding our passionate concert. “That was quite the inspirational concert.” Freddie laughed.

Girl-Sam looked a little pissed. “I’m still not cleared for sex yet, and you three almost made me forget that shit.” She grumbled. “I have to say though…Baby Sominex…you have got a real healthy set of lungs behind those big ass titties on your chest.”

“Sam.” Freddie chided.

She rolled her eyes. “Chill Fred-dork…I think she knows her tits are big. I mean, they don’t just pop up one day and are suddenly bigger than a normal person’s head. Mine took years to get to a D cup…I’m pretty sure that hers took years to get to the J or K cup they have got to be.” She turned to look at me. “Do you have to special order bras to fit those things?”

I laughed. “Believe it or not, I can usually find bras I can fit at a lot of higher end stores…not Vickey…she has big girl hatred, but Fredericks of Hollywood pretty much caters to women like me and there are more and more websites offering lingerie for curvier women popping up every day.”

“Send me those sites…according to my gyno, these may or may not go back down once the triplets and their dad are done with them.”

“Who said I was ever gonna be done with them.” Freddie muttered before strengthening his tone and saying, “We’d probably get changed and join the rest of the family at the beach before they send out a search party.”

That sounded like really good advice so that was what we did. We rinsed off in the showers in the adjacent men’s room while Freddie gave girl-Sam what relief he could in the women’s room. Quickly we dried off and slid into our swim suits. Freddie and his Sam joined us also in swimming apparel, though it was a bit of a stretch for girl-Sam…she was rocking a scuba-suit-looking top and a matching pair of board shorts. I’d have wondered if she didn’t have body image issues, but nothing about her screamed anything but ‘happy with who the hell she was’. We made our way to the Retreat Center to enjoy some beach time. Of course, no matter the race, gender or creed…older family members love to make fun of the younger set. So there were quite a few comments to our rather late arrival. They all basically boiled down to ‘we know what you were doing and we were either doing it too or we wish we’d have thought of that ourselves.’ Girl-Sam’s mother was definitely lamenting not having two men to see to her every desire.

We shrugged off the jokes and found our more directly connected portion of the family. Sander and Gabbie were chilling on their towels. They had brought the Puckett-Benson babies with them since Girl-Sam had offered to find us and make sure that we found them. Triple S had finally deserted their friends in favor of their parents. Mainly because in an effort to leave with the same number of children the family had arrived with, the kids were ordered to report to their parents every hour without fail. But it was also because the bigger kids were really enjoying playing with the babies. Once we had our stuff settled, Triple S left the babies alone and dragged us into the water. After a little while Gabbie and Sander shooed girl-Sam and Freddie off to join us.

The water was very, very different from the beaches in Florida, or even further down the pacific coast in LA. It was a lot murkier…and definitely not as warm. We didn’t go our very far and we kept coming back onto the beach and sunning ourselves to warm up. Time flew by and before we realized it Pam’s voice came over the bullhorn reminding us that it was time to head back for dinner. After dinner, someone created a huge bonfire and I swear it was like the Pucketts turned into the Lord of the Flies…there were kids running hither and yon, adults shouting and dancing and laughing everywhere. It was freaking awesome. A few relatives came over to poke and prod at us about our relationship. Carmine and Chaz gave Puck and me the ‘hurt our Sammy and we’re perfectly willing to do more time to fuck you up’ speech…but they seemed to bond over Puck’s love of rock music and his stint in juvie.

We finally made it back to the motel a little after eleven. Samantha and Fredward managed to talk us into helping get the kids down for bed again. We showered and fell into bed. The next morning the whole big ass family took over the Blue Moose Café, a local Port Townsend Restaurant for breakfast. It had some really amazing food, but the best part was that they served the whole breakfast family style, so it was really like you were having a nice Sunday breakfast with your WHOLE family. We flew home on the same flight with Sander, Gabbie and Triple S. Sander and Gabs had parked there so we were able to all pile in and just go home. The second I walked into my mom and dad’s arms I really felt like I was home and finally able to breathe and enjoy what remained of my summer. The rest of the day was spent talking and catching up with our family. I knew that the rest of our friends were all back in Lima as well, so I knew that the next few days we could spend checking in with them. I couldn’t wait to reconnect…but at that moment, I had Amaea in my arms and I was watching Noah telling Amara all about her Puckett-Benson cousins…and all was right with my world.

 

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me (U2)  
Artie Point of View

Very few people in this whole wide world would believe how truly sweet and caring Santana Lopez can be if she loves you. I was truly blessed not just to believe, I knew first hand. I knew that she was trying to do something really wonderful for our anniversary. So when I had my very first Saturday off the Saturday after the anniversary of our first date and worked the morning before rather than my usual Friday evening shift, something told me she was definitely up to something. Even having figured that out, I still did my part and on the night of our actual anniversary, Wednesday the twenty third, I took my girls out to BreadStix and let Snix gorge herself until they literally threw us out.

But that didn’t mean I wasn’t gratified to be proven correct when my dark haired, sultry-eyed Latin beauty came strolling into the store that Friday looking like sin on stilts in a pair of white lace short shorts and a black tank top with a gray tiger’s face almost hidden against the darkness of the shirt’s front. She tossed me a knapsack and growled. “Go, get comfy…I’m going to take Britts her clothes; we’re hitting the road in thirty.” I might have asked what she was talking about, or where we were going, but she cut me off in the most expedient and pleasurable manner of kissing me until we were both breathless.

With a smirk and a glance at her watch she turned and rushed out of the Pear Store. One of the customers came over and looked me up and down before asking, “How the hell did you get a girl like that and can you teach me?”

I threw him a side eye and saw someone who clearly still lived in his parent’s basement and not just because of the economy either. My smile was broad and not at all condescending. “My dick is prefect for her and I can eat pussy like my name was Casanova…” I wasn’t sure if the second was true or not, but I felt pretty confident that my little Devil Doll was pleased with my performance…as was my Angel Doll…that alone had to give me some street cred. “Those aren’t things I can teach you, my man…sorry. But, if we upgrade you to the new iPad Air, you can use the video chat feature to speak with Isabella Soprano at the Bunny Ranch near Reno. Supposedly she gives an online class that would make even the most pathetic soul a god in the sack.” I made that commission and then headed into the back, clocked out and used the accessible employee bathroom to change.

I rolled out just as Santana and Brittany came in looking for me. Brittany gave me a passionate kiss hello. “Tana has something special planned for us.” Brittany had changed out of her super fashion conscious work clothes and into a pair of cut-off jeans shorts and a calm blue blousy shirt.

“Does she now?” I asked looking at out dark haired girlfriend.

“Yup…your parents were very helpful. They took care of getting both of you all packed. Artie, your mom wants you to text her after we check in. Brittany, your dad wants you to update your Facebook page at least three times a day…he said it would help Lord Tubbington not miss you while you’re gone.”

It is rather wrong how much those who know and love Brittany use Lord Tubbington’s name to get her to comply to what whatever it was we needed her to do. But then again, it always worked, so really it was just efficient. Santana had us loaded into her dad’s Cayenne and headed down Highway thirty-three towards Columbus. The trip only took us a little over an hour and a half. But we talked the whole way up. “Man, did Puck send you all the pictures of the house?” Santana asked me was she made yet another illegal lane change. “The cabinets in our master bath are fucking boss.”

“I got them from Cede, ours are way cool, but did you see the ones in Kurt and Cede’s kitchen? That dark cherry color is so damn cool looking. I mean we have the better configuration, but that color is just awesome.” I damn near giggled. It was so weird that we were having such an epic college experience. I know that it is mainly because we’re gonna be with Mercedes and them, but I will definitely take it.

Brittany laughed happily. “I can’t believe they let us pick the kitchen with the built in wine rack. We can’t even buy wine.”

Santana had picked the design with the wine rack just because she, like her mother, loved the stuff. Despite coming from Spanish Harlem and Lima Heights Adjacent, the Lopez women were both very cultured. I personally just didn’t see the allure. If I were going to drink, it sure wouldn’t be what basically amounted to spoiled grape juice. But I also knew that if it made her happy we’d have a freaking tricked out wine cellar when we had our own shit. We talked about the fixtures Kurt had picked for their half of the house versus what he and Santana had picked together for our half. It was cool that the quality was the same and yet there were differences that showed the different personalities.

We pulled into the Crowne Plaza hotel just a bit after two thirty in the afternoon. Santana had us checked in and our luggage up to the room in less time than I was, personally, used to. My Boo has a way with people…she also has a way with imaginary lawsuits…word may have gotten around. The room was really nice. King sized bed, with everything set up for those of us in wheelchairs and yet not so low as to make it uncomfortable for Santana…Brittany was a little too tall for some of the lowered furniture, but she tended to look at everything as if she were at a tea party in Wonderland. Granted she had a little too much fun with the TDD alarm display, but what can I say, my Baby is just a special soul.

“Okay Baby, will you please tell us what’s going on now.” I asked Santana after everyone got all freshened up and unpacked. I like surprises as well as the next guy. To be honest, her last surprise was gonna be really, really hard to top. But still, in every surprise there came a point where the reveal was inevitable.

“Well, when I noticed that the State Fair was going to start this weekend, I figured we could do a little getaway. Tonight we’re going out for dinner, tomorrow we’re spending the whole day at the fair…if you want to go out to dinner then too, that’s on one of you.” She told us honestly.

I rolled over and pulled her into my lap. “You are one of the two best girlfriends any man has ever had in the entire history of this planet.” I said before capturing her lips with mine.

“Damn right I am.” She retorted when our kiss ended.

Brittany came over and kissed each of us before announcing that she was the other one. “And since Artie took us out Wednesday, and Santana, you’ve planned this amazing weekend and you’re taking us out tonight…I’m gonna make us reservations and take us out tomorrow.” She kissed us both again. “So Tana…what how much time do we have before we have to go to make dinner?”

Santana smiled, “oh we have hours. We don’t need to be there until eight thirty.”

“Whatever shall we do for the next five hours?” I asked with a big smile on my face.

My Boo laughed. “Better call it three Robo Nerd…we’re gonna have to shower and get all dolled up. The place we’re heading tonight is fancy, fancy.”

I just laughed. I could definitely work with three hours. Even with everything I have to go through to get naked, we were completely without clothing and in the bed in no time flat. I got to have to pleasure of tasting my Baby first as Santana rode dick. They weren’t patient enough to allow me to recoup on my own, instead my two lovely ladies worked together to lick and suck and stroke me back to full attention. I have to say no matter how many times we all make love; one of my all-time favorites is when the two of them are concentrating all their oral attention on my dick. That day was no different. I was back and ready for the next round in half my usual rebound time.

Round two, I took control. I settled myself against the head board and looked at my Boo. “Did you bring Señor Cosas Grandes?” I asked imperiously. I never asked her why she named her strap-on, let alone why she named it Mr. Big Stuff when it was a rather normal size, a little smaller than my own endowment, though I was a little curious. When she nodded, I smiled. “Suit up Devil Doll. Brittany, I want you to straddle my hips, facing me.”

Brittstook my command one step further. She straddled my hips and lowered herself onto my dick. Santana was not one to rely on just hormone based birth control; but Brittany preferred that there be nothing between us when we made love. She and I both groaned out expletives. There will never be a time when being enveloped in her tight, wet heat didn’t make me sigh and curse in abject pleasure. But the feeling of all encompassing tightness was made even better as Santana slid her lubed up fake dick into our Baby’s ass. The three of us moved together, making the girls each come more than once. In this position I was able to kiss and caress both women, teasing nipples, even flicking clits to send them rocketing into pleasure. That shit was getting really, really good when some no good muthafucker came knocking on the door. Santana being the only one in the room with even some use of their legs in that moment withdrew from Britt’s hot, tight ass, pulled off the condom she had placed on the dildo to aid later cleanup and threw on a shirt. She opened the door just enough to stick her head out of, “What the hell do you want?” she growled angrily.

“I’m sorry Miss…but there have been noise complaints in regards to this room.” The security guard stuttered a bit.

I could feel the eye roll all the way over on the bed. “What happened, did we interrupt some oh so important state senator boinking his intern…did he hear what women really sound like when they are getting off and he now realizes that every woman he has ever been with has actually been faking it each and every time? Look Barney Fife’s less successful grandson…It’s our first anniversary…maybe you guys should move the whiner babies to another fucking floor, ‘cause I can guarantee that we don’t do that quiet boning shit.” She smirked.

“It is nice that you and your partner are celebrating a year together miss, but I must investigate each noise complaint to make sure that everyone involved is a consenting adult.” He added seemingly more sure of himself. Brittany and I exchanged a look.

I personally thought that was a good line to use if you wanted to come in and perve on the guests. Brittany must have seen the disbelief on my face because she started to giggle. Santana heard that and decided to get rude. “Look, we’re all over eighteen. We’re all here of our own free-fucking-will. If you have any further concerns, feel free to address them to my attorney. Antwan Berry of Lima, Ohio he handles contracts and civil rights cases…you know like when some repressed asshole decides to interrupt my time with my loves because they don’t like our relationship.” She told him and then closed the door dead in his face.

She came back over suited back up and I just started driving her and Britts crazy all over again. When I finally stopped holding back and gave into the bliss of fucking my Baby and playing with my Boo, I came so hard it took me quite some time to get myself back together enough to be able to make my way to the bathroom. Brittany took full advantage of Santana and my own weariness, she took the first shower. By the time she finished, Santana managed to get the drop on me to hit it next. I went last, which wasn’t a bother because I knew I would have the least to do.

It was a very close call but we made it to the restaurant on time. When she was finished dressing, Santana looked amazing wearing form fitting red dress that stopped a little above her sexy knees and had sheer illusion lace going from the sweetheart neckline up to the collar in the front and down to her lower back. She paired it with some white wedges and barely there jewelry and makeup. Her beautiful hair was curled and pulled up into an elegant French twist. Brittany was looking every bit as lovely. She was wearing a dress that was so pale a pink it was almost white. The dress was very high in the front but had a cowl feature in the back. Britts heels were every bit as high as Tana’s but they were a bone color. Her hair had been pulled away from her face, but cascaded down her back straight as a bone. Her makeup was a little stronger since the color of the dress was so neutral. I always felt boring in comparison in a simple navy blue suit with blue, pale pink and red striped tie.

Mitchell’s Ocean Club was outside the downtown area in a nicely done ‘town center’ deal with really expensive shopping and condos and the like. We took ‘the Outerbelt’ which was what the locals called the Jack Nicklaus Freeway. The restaurant was definitely a classy establishment. White table cloths and a Matré d and everything. We were seated and our waiter showed up pretty quickly. The dude was tall and very slender. His skin was the color of mahogany…maybe even darker than Dr. Benton’s. But Timothy, as he gave us his name, was so gay he made Kurt and Blaine seem butch. It was almost creepy how gay he actually was. The guy was good at his job. He took our drink orders after making suggestions as to the best appetizers. We ended up going with his suggestions and getting the colossal shrimp cocktail and the Point Judith calamari to share. They were both incredible. So we let him suggest our salad course as well. Brittany had the Crisp Wedge of Iceberg which, despite the inauspicious name came fully done up with red onion, smoked bacon, grape tomatoes, bleu cheese, and topped with a cabernet buttermilk dressing. For Santana he suggested the Ocean Club House Salad which was a combination of romaine lettuce, field greens, diced smith apples, goat cheese crumbles, roasted walnuts, and finished off with a sherry mustard vinaigrette. My salad turned out to be exactly what I would have picked for myself, the Caesar Salad a simple bed of crisp romaine, parmesan garlic dressing, and brioche croutons. I could have called for the check after the salads. I was already full. But Santana was seriously determined or she had worked up that much of an appetite. She went first and ordered the fourteen ounce New York strip, medium rare, with some garlic shrimp scampi on top. She went with lobster mashed potatoes and roasted Brussel sprouts. Brittany was next and she quickly chose the black truffle macaroni and cheese, the roasted carrots and teriyaki salmon served on a bed of shiitake sticky rice topped with a soy butter sauce. It was finally my turn and I just couldn’t decide. So I asked Timothy for a suggestion and he smiled. “I’ll bring you just the thing. Just one question…medium rare or medium well?”

“Medium well.” I said quickly. He disappeared into the kitchens and Satan, Britts and I resumed our conversation. We discussed the scholarships that Santana and I had gotten and how much we needed to have our parents come out of pocket for. We talked about some grants I had found and we’d all applied for. I’d applied for each and every grant for people with wheelchairs or other spinal injury related disabilities. I’d heard back from five of them and had managed to reduce the ‘Rents’ responsibility down to under fifteen hundred. My mother had turned an actual cartwheel when she did the math. Brittany’s school wasn’t as expensive, but the truth was that there weren’t a lot of non-loan opportunities for her. We looked and looked and only managed to reduce her financial needs by about ten percent. Santana’s was only decreased by about three percent. Fortunately, her dad had worked his student loans off by working as an ER surgeon at a general hospital in New York before returning to Lima and really starting to make real money. He had planned that his child wouldn’t have any student loans to deal with and saved accordingly.

When Timothy came back he was carrying the girls’ dinners and a second waiter approached with mine. Timothy had created a surf and turf selection. It was the eight ounce filet, one fairly large jumbo lump crab cake and a smaller lobster tail. He had chosen the malt vinegar fries and steamed broccoli to accompany the trio of entrees. I ate until I felt like I was going to burst. Everything was so very good. Santana was just as happy with her meal as I was with mine. Brittany enjoyed hers but had bites of both my and Santana’s steaks. In return she allowed us to taste her black truffle mac and cheese. As well as I knew Santana and her greed, I was still shocked that she ordered dessert. She ordered for each of us. “Can we please get the ten layer carrot cake with the cream cheese icing and pineapple syrup, the crème brulee with caramelized sugar top and fresh berries and the Blueberry Lemon Cheesecake Graham Cracker Crust & Blueberry Syrup…but can you package them to go and bring us the check? It all looks really delicious…but I’m so very full right now.” She said sweetly. Timothy wrapped up our entrees as well as bringing our desserts to the table wrapped for transport as well. Santana had me check her math and left him a twenty five percent tip. He was a really good waiter.

We went window shopping to work off our dinner before returning to our hotel and making love again. The next day we headed to the fairgrounds early, choosing to have our left overs and dessert as our breakfast rather than fighting the crowds at the continental breakfast. I refused to let Santana pay for anything since she had paid for our room, transportation and that hugely expensive meal the night before. Even at ten bucks a ticket and twenty-three bucks each for the all day ride bands, I still came out way ahead. So I fed both my girls all day. By the time we left at five to get ready for our dinner, I had definitely paid my fair share. When we got back to the hotel, I sent the ladies on up to our room while I made use of the handicap stall in the lobby’s men’s room. After all the rich food the night before and the fair food that day I needed the facilities in the worse way, but there was no power on the earth to make me go in the same vicinity as Santana. It’s not a lack of a comfort level, it’s just not wanting to get clowned for the next week about the intensity of the stench of my bowel movement.

Once I had relieved myself, I made my way to the room. Santana was already in the process of getting dressed. She looked gorgeous in a heather gray body hugging dress that flowed from mid thigh on her left leg down to mid calf behind her right leg. The dress had a high collar and was sleeveless, though the shoulders were decorated around the arm holes with silver studs. The dress was way more casual than the one she had worn the night before so I took that as a clue. I went to my bag and pulled out a pair of khakis and a nice shirt. Brittany came out the bathroom wearing a pretty dress, black with Italian plum blossoms all over the front and the skirt. It too was sleeveless and high necked. To be honest it was probably a very good thing that both girls were wearing high necked dresses. They were both sporting lots of passion marks over their chests and breasts.

Britts pick for our dinner restaurant was totally different from Santana’s. First of all,it was rolling distance from the Crowne Plaza and rather than going somewhere with a matre’d and white table cloths, we were seated at a small table in a little Italian eatery. The food was amazing from the mozzarella sticks we had for our starters, to an amazing Shrimp Salad which consisted of shrimp over three types of lettuce, cheese, hot peppers, Kalamata olives, hard-boiled egg, and tomato. We elected to each have a different entrée. Despite the fact that we had had some really amazing seafood the night before, I went with the shrimp scampi anyway. Didn’t regret it in the slightest. Santana fell in love with the veal parmigiana. Britts decided to go with one of their uber-authentic pizzas. Once again we all left with to go boxes, eating some really amazing gelatos as we made our way back to the hotel. We made love again that night and the next morning before checking out and heading back to our usual reality. I loved every single second of that weekend almost as much as I loved both of my companions…my ladies…my loves.


	8. Next Contestant (Nickelback) & Good Things Happen (Dierks Bentley)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't you wish your betas were Hot like Mine!!!  
> LOL  
> Thank you KayBee 80 & Illiandyandra  
> And  
> Thank you to all who've reviewed or left Kudos

Chapter 8  
Next Contestant (Nickelback)  
Tina Point of View

I loved Asian Camp. Okay, so it was just a regular summer camp with a ton of kids of all different kinds of Asian descent attending science and math workshops rather than just the normal craft stuff. We played a lot of soccer, tennis and softball rather than hiking and such, though; and it had always been a great experience. I was there as a counselor rather than a camper the summer after graduation. The pay wasn’t spectacular, only eight fifty an hour. But you got paid for twelve hours every day whether you actually worked that long or not, which was nice. Best of all, Mike and I were together away from all the hustle and bustle of home…also, the camp counselor’s barracks were divided into private rooms. The rules were, you didn’t pay any attention to who’s coming and going from their rooms…and no one would pay attention to who was coming and going from yours. I tried to adhere to the rule, but I just loved knowing things like the fact that the head counselor -a mature woman of almost fifty- was usually accompanied into her room by one of the college guys, a different one each of the last few summers since I’d become a counselor. 

This year, Mike’s room was basically unused. His clothes and everything else shared space with mine. We slept together every night. It was amazing; we were able to explore each other in ways we could have only dreamed of when we were stuck with an hour or two here, an hour or two there. I never realized how much I felt cherished when I let him have control and he made slow, tender love to me the way he usually preferred. He never realized how hard he could come by holding me down and just taking me hard and fast like I typically liked. Not that we were all about the sex, I mean we could and did talk about anything and everything. When Lisa Chau decided to try and flirt with my man, Mike didn’t try to hide it, he told me everything. The next day the shock on her face was almost worth not putting my fist through it when she tried to play me. Coming up, getting in my face with the other Chinese girls…they all hated Mike and me together since I was just a lowly Korean…and talking about how Mike was such a great conversationalist or whatever. “Wait, you mean the three and a half minutes you tried to flirt with him after which he walked away and come find me? Just like he did last summer, and the summer before that.” I pointed out. “You know it would be great if you’d get the point that he really has no interest in your flat ass.” 

“Yúchǔn de xiǎo jìnǚ.” She said angrily. 

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not stupid…in fact I’m really fucking smart. I’ve only ever had Mike as a lover so I definitely not a whore, and when you consider that I am taller, bustier and have a bigger booty than you…”little” isn’t a factual adjective either, you mas-eobsneun jag-eun seong-gi.” I smirked. “Yeah, I understood your language and just hit you back in mine. Since I know that you don’t know what I said, let me translate…I called you a vapid little cunt. Mike doesn’t want you. He is happy with me, even if we are technically from two different races. But you know what is way more important than that little inconsequential fact? We are in love. We actually want to work towards a complete, long term future together. I get it, my boyfriend is really hot…you want him…you don’t think I’m smart enough or hot enough or Asian enough or whatever for him…but he loves me. So why don’t you concentrate your attention on one of the other guys here? Justin Liu is always following you around.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Justin Liu is almost as far from hot as you are.” She said disdainfully.

“Wow…nappeun, that means bitch by the way, let me stop you right there. Walk away. I’m done giving you and your gaggle of yapping geese the time of day, let alone my attention.” I said with a smile I had learned from Quinn and Santana. “Just one last thing…You wish you were as hot as I am. Maybe if you were you might actually get a man as sexy as My Mike.” I turned and walked the hell away. 

The bitch and her clique avoided me for the rest of the summer. She tried to push up on Mike only one final time after I shared with him the things she had said to me. She hit on him in the cafeteria in full view of God and Buddha and everybody. The look Mike gave her should have turned her blood to ice water in her veins. “Look, I tried being nice and polite and sparing your feelings, but apparently you take my kindness as license to attack the woman I love and actually want to be with. So let me put this in terms even your tiny, self-absorbed brain can understand. I love Tina. I want only Tina. You are too short, too small minded, too pathetic…you don’t have any actual belief in yourself or you wouldn’t have to put everyone around you down to make yourself feel better. You try to act as if you are the most beautiful Asian woman since BingBing Fan…but the truth is that you’re the most flat chested and flat assed female I’ve ever actually seen-- and if you knew some of the anorexia poster children at my high school, you’d know how sad that is. You can’t possibly love your race all that much, considering that you’re wearing those colored contact lenses. If your lips were any thinner you wouldn’t even have a mouth, just a slash across your face. So sorry if you don’t happen to like who I’m with, but that really isn’t your place to say or your decision to make. Tina has my heart and you…you only have my scorn.”

Even several weeks later when we were back in our home town, I was back in my bedroom; it was still a great memory. I stretched trying to make myself get up. I had set my alarm to play my favorite station to get me motivated to go deal hunting. I was ready to start shopping for college…but I was kind of jealous of Cedes’ seemingly unlimited funds. My parents were pretty well off, but they both worked for other people in career kind of fields. My dad had a career he loved as an information systems manager, while my mother was an archivist at the campus library at UNWO. They had done a great job saving for my college, but I was paying for anything outside of tuition, room, board and fees. I was really fortunate that I’d gotten almost all of my ‘needs’ from my wishlist as my graduation gifts from my family. But the truth of the matter was that to begin my life as a college coed, I wanted a new look. 

I forced myself to get up and get showered. As I was exiting the shower, I heard the DJ say that the ninety fourth caller would be entered to win a fifteen thousand dollar shopping spree. I loved radio contests, I’d been trying to win one since I was thirteen. I figured I might as well give that one a try. I grabbed my landline phone and the number was still in the directory. I was shocked as hell when someone actually answered and asked me to hold. I screamed like a three year old getting candy when ‘Billy the Kid’ told me that I was the correct caller and asked me my name. “Sorry. Sorry…you can ask my friends I’m easily excitable. Anyway…I’m Tina Cohen-Chang.”

“You sure you’re over eighteen, Tina Cohen-Chang?” he teased. 

“Yup. In fact, I’m just three weeks out from heading to California to start my freshman year at Berkeley.” I said proudly. 

“Well, you just won a hundred bucks, that should make you at least a little popular in the freshman dorm.” He shot back. “This also makes you eligible for the drawing for the fifteen thousand dollar shopping spree at the Jeffersonville Tanger Outlet Shoppes this Saturday at eleven. You’ll have six hours to spend the entire lot. If you win the rules are simple. You cannot leave the outlet center and you cannot spend more than fifteen hundred at any one store. Still, that would be an awesome thing for a college freshman. You’d be set for all four years, as long as you don’t gain the freshman fifteen.” 

I laughed politely, already day dreaming about what I could do with that kind of money. The on air guy’s voice was replaced by one of the interns or something giving me a rundown of the rules and getting all my information. I went into total research mode…directions from Lima to the outlet mall near Dayton were gotten and saved to my phone. My phone gave me a great idea. I quickly called in Kurt, Cedes and Tana, who thankfully didn’t work Mondays. She was understandably angry that I called before nine on her day off…until I told her why I was calling. I wondered how on earth she managed to get there before Kurt and Mercedes, until I realized that she hadn’t bothered to shower. I forced her to take one in my bathroom and grabbed her a pair of shorts and a tank top. She’d have to go commando…but it was better than her sitting round with eye crunchies…ugh.   
Kurt was in full command. “Alright, now I’m sure that you’ll want Mike with you. I suggest that you allow at least the three of us to join you. Santana and your feet are of a similar size…she can tackle picking out shoes for you and having them waiting for you at the counter at Nike, Michael Kors and Nine West. That will give you a full sampling of great shoes. Mercedes would be more than capable of handling Coach, Bare Minerals, Kay Jewelers and the Linen Connection…We’ll drag Sam and Noah and they can handle getting you set up for your workout apparel needs, as well as any exercise or sporting equipment you might want. You and I will hit BCBGMAXAZRIA, Polo Ralph Lauren Factory Store, Ann Taylor Factory Store, Aeropostale, New York & Company Outlet, and White House Black Market…you will be the most fashionable freshman to ever walk the campus of Berkeley.”

I sighed…“That covers almost everything…but I need a new laptop. Mine is older than dirt.” 

We were all looking thoughtful when Mercedes suddenly grabbed her iPad. “They have a   
Toys R Us outlet, and Toys R Us does have computers. We can send Mike there to pick you something good and maybe he can even find you something awesome and fun to liven up your dorm room.” 

“Yeah, they sell game consoles and TVs too.” Santana pointed out with a smirk. “You go there and rock them in Halo or Call of Duty…you become the favorite chick on campus.”   
I’m fairly certain that there are quite a few military maneuvers in history that were planned with less forethought than that we planned that shopping spree that may never have even come to pass. Eventually I realized that I still needed to go and do some real world shopping. Because the hundred dollars were a nice perk, but the rest was still a pipe dream. When I told them that Santana immediately begged off, she had some sleep to catch up on. Kurt had, unfortunately, been banned from my favorite consignment store…an unfortunate argument over an Alexander McQueen knockoff. So he retreated to go and spend the day with his dad at the shop. 

Cedes called Sam and Puck and told them to call Mike and see what he was doing and we spent a lot of the day going from shop to shop bargain hunting and finding unique pieces that I loved. She found a few things too so by the time we met the guys for dinner, we were both happy. Mike, Puck and Sam had gotten Finn and Lauren together and had an epic CoD and MarioKart war all day. Dinner was great. Puck and Sam had some serious plans for some techy exercise stuff that they thought they should be able to find a good deal on. Mike had looked up the suggested specs Berkeley had on their site for student laptops as well as what kind of calculator they suggested. I looked around. 

“Don’t you think all this planning might be jinxing the whole thing?”

They all looked at me like I was a little crazy. “You’re only gonna have six hours to spend a whole lot of money and there are ninety to a hundred stores there. If you don’t have a game plan…no way on earth you could do it.” Sam pointed out. 

I laughed, “Now you know your girlfriend and you know Kurt and Santana…”

“So basically your plans have plans.” Puck teased. 

“Oh yeah.” I nodded. 

The rest of the week flew past in a flurry of planning for the competition and planning for college if I didn’t win. Saturday morning Mike and I rode down with my parents and Cedes, Kurt, Tana, Sam and Puck rode down in her Tahoe. Artie, Brittany, Tessa and Aidan all had to work and Lauren and Finn had to go back to Columbus for something for the sports program at Ohio State. When we got there, there were a total of eighty people who had qualified for the shopping spree give-a-way. Everyone was gathered in the food court and the radio station was there broadcasting live. I had to show my driver’s license to get my hundred bucks and they refreshed my memory as to the rules. The outlet mall was huge with space for a hundred and fifty stores. A few of those stores that were listed on the site as ‘Coming Soon’ were already open… including one that changed my strategy a little. Thanks to the guys demanding that we stop for breakfast, we got there right at ten thirty, so we only had thirty minutes to wait around. Kurt, Cedes and I reevaluated the plan and added a few places we wanted to stop. 

The contest was pretty much what you expected. All our names were written on index cards and put in a big, lottery or bingo, spinny barrel thing. I don’t know if I was squeezing Mike’s hand as hard as Cedes was squeezing mine. As the more popular of the two live DJ on the station, Billy the Kid was the one to read the names while Siddinee was the one to pull the card from the barrel. “Ladies and Gentlemen…we have our winner…will Tina Cohen-Chang of Lima Ohio come to the stage?” I would love to say that I was calm and walked to the stage with dignity and poise…but the truth was that I made like a housewife on The Price Is Right in the sixties. I screamed and jumped up and down and ran up there like my ass was on fire. When I got to the stage I grabbed Siddinee and hugged her like she was my long lost twin. Then I hugged Billy the Kid just as hard. I finally calmed down enough to speak, which allowed Billy the Kid to ask his questions. 

“So Tina, you’re the soon to be college student…have you done your homework?”  
I nodded emphatically. “Well the site said that Best Buy and Game Stop were coming soon…but on the way in I saw that they were already open, so that changes my strategy a little…but we can role with that.”

“You sound like you know exactly what you’re doing…do you have help?” Siddinee asked with a laugh.

“Oh…My mom and dad…my boyfriend Mike…my best friend Mercedes, and her boyfriends Sam and Noah…and best friends to all of us Kurt and Santana are all here to help me.” I told her waving out at my little portion of the crowd. We exchanged a few more pleasantries and they called all of my entourage to the stage before they went back over the rules. Billy the Kid told me that I had from noon to five pm to spend the fifteen thousand dollars. They handed me ten visa gift cards with fifteen hundred dollars each and remind me that while I could use the same card at more than one store…I couldn’t spend more than one card at the same store. They also told me that while I could have others pick stuff out for me, I had to make all the purchases in person. I had to be back on the stage by ten minutes after five, and while I could buy things that had to be delivered… all sales must be complete and I had to have all receipts when I got to the stage. I signed the paperwork agreeing to the rules, which also stipulated that I had to return all of the gift cards when I got back to the stage and whatever I didn’t spend would be gone. They gave me enough mall directories and maps for the whole group and left us to strategize. 

As soon as they were gone, Kurt passed us each a sheet he had created which gave my sizes for any and all known foibles…such as the differences in how a vintage dress was cut versus a more modern style or the cuts of different labels...he also include all my favorite colors and suggestions he’d made for the ones he thought I would look great in. We decided to attack the plan with a few augmentations. My mom was going to head straight to Best Buy and find me a great desktop, a TV and a great tablet. Puck was going to go to GameStop and set aside an Xbox 1 with Call of Duty and Halo…and every Sims 3 game and expansion pack. He swore he wouldn’t tell a soul. Mercedes was going to hit Bare Minerals, Perfumia, the Linen Collection and Bose Factory Store…she had her list all ready of everything I could possibly have wanted from those stores. Santana was going to go shoe and accessory shopping and then hit Kay’s Jewelers. Sam’s stores were the Nike Factory Store, and Finish Line, while Mike had Toys R Us. Daddy was hitting the Pottery Barn and a few of the other home goods stores. Everyone split up and Kurt and I went clothes shopping. We were so on point. As the gang finished with their shopping and left everything at the customer service counter in my name, they would text me. When I finished in the store I was in, I’d find the nearest of my friends, go in, check out and let them take the stuff to either my parents car or Mercedes’. 

By four, I was the proud owner of a complete and total new wardrobe including some great, very chic things from BCBGMAXAZRIA and some classic looks from Ann Taylor. I was even prepared in case I needed something for a formal event… though I would have to buy my own lingerie…the only underwear stores there were Hanes Brand and Jockey. Mom had found me a HP quad core desktop with a 2 terabyte hard drive and a 25 inch monitor as part of the package. She’d also found me a new iPad…I had been using her old gen two model… and a forty two inch LCD TV. She also grabbed me all the accessories I would need for all three, including a bunch of different colored flash drives. Mike had hooked me up with a great bike along with all the trimmings and safety and security features. He’d also grabbed me an awesome Dell laptop, the TI-84 calculator I needed for school, a selection of wicked cool board games and every other gadget or toy he saw in the store that he thought I would like, including a great Muppet Babies pillow for when I missed our friends. 

Sam was way too into fitness. He’d gotten me fitness apparel for yoga, dance, running, swimming and groups. He had gotten me special socks and a pair of trainers for each different type of training. He was very proud of himself, because he even had me outfitted with several sports bras. The pride, apparently, came from the fact that he did it ‘without barely blushing,’ though the sales guy who was with him told a different story. 

Santana’s pride knew no bounds. She had managed to score me five pairs of shoes, two kick ass pairs of boots and three purses from Michael Kors, even more than that from both Coach and Nine West. When she finished I was the proud owner of two ‘nice’ watches and two everyday ones, quite a few pairs of really hot sunglasses and two pairs of diamond stud earrings, a necklace with a small diamond pendant, and a tennis bracelet. My more criminal minded friend even thought ahead and found me a great jewelry safe that was hidden behind a working wall clock. It was small, but perfect to hold my real jewelry and more expensive watches without letting the world know that I had something worth stealing. Daddy had pretty much gotten me anything I might want in either my room at home or my dorm room including some really cute bedding. 

Cedes had hooked me up with the full line of Bare Minerals makeup in colors that would   
be perfect for me. They were classic and sophisticated without being completely outside current trends. But she had also gotten me a selection of colors that would be perfect if I wanted to revisit my goth past. Kurt and I had created me an entire wardrobe of what he called California Chic…which seemed to be a lot like New York chic with lighter fabrics and milder colors. I loved it. He hadn’t been as dictatorial as usual and I was able to slip in quite a few pieces that harkened back to my old style…just in case I needed the comfort of the very familiar. Mike and I did a quick rundown of what we’d spent and I found that I still had almost two thousand bucks left. So I dragged us all into the Coach store. It was very near the stage, and best of all it would have the perfect gifts for each of my ‘helpers’. I got my mother a new wallet and a silk shift dress that had a tie at the collar. For Daddy I found a pair of gorgeous black leather loafers, a belt with a subtle silver buckle and a new wallet. For Mike I found a very adult looking watch and he picked a wallet that matched it perfectly. Kurt decided on a leather fold over pouch that was done in several colors and finishes of leather and a new messenger bag. Puck selected a black leather belt with a silver buckle and a pair of really badass sunglasses. Sam thanked me profusely as he selected a traditional men’s billfold and a belt like Puck’s. Mercedes and Santana both picked Coach purses...very different purses. Cedes’ was a deep purple leather satchel that could be worn crossbody or as a regular shoulder bag. I made her grab a perfect ocelot print wallet that pretty much screamed Mercedes Jones. Santana had gone with a mocha brown taxi tote that looked very trendy and ready for Manhattan. She also grabbed a bright pink wristlet that Satan didn’t even try to pretend was for herself. When it was rung up and we still had some money left to spend, I grabbed gifts for Artie, Britts, Blaine, Finn and Lauren too. Granted, they just got leather key chains, the guys had bottle openers hidden inside and Lauren’s had a hidden flash drive. The cashier rung that up and we made it to the stage with minutes to go. 

When the DJ’s gave the tally, it turned out that in five hours, among the fifteen to twenty stores we’d visited, I managed to spend fourteen thousand, nine hundred ninety eight dollars and fifty three cent. “She only left a dollar forty seven total on the ten cards. Tina Cohen-Chang wins my personal Best Shopper in History.” Billy the Kid laughed. “Now Tina…I know that when going to college, your biggest worry is probably not something that you can buy here at the Jeffersonville Tanger Outlet Center…it’s paying Berkeley’s tuition. We here at Kiss FM know how much work it is to get into a school like that…none of us could manage it…so our station owner would like to give you a little something to help you with your tuition. We’re going to give you the first ever Kiss FM scholarship…a thousand dollars a year as long as you keep your grades above a three point o.”

“Oh my flipping God!” I shouted. There was more of the highly embarrassing hugging strangers and jumping up and down like I’d just won Miss Universe. It wasn’t exactly a full ride, but every little bit helped as far as I was concerned. My parents were just as happy as I was. That brought my total scholarships I’d gotten up to just under fifteen thousand a year…there were quite a few that I had found after the deadlines, but I’d be applying for those that I could next year and making sure that I kept my grades high enough to keep the ones I already had. College was approaching fast and through planning, perseverance and good luck, I was definitely as ready as I could ever be…I couldn’t wait. 

Good Things Happen (Dierks Bentley)  
Sam Point of View

I love all the women in my family…but God above can they shop. Dani-Mom has finally gone back to work, and the twins are being slowly integrated into day care at the Jones’ church. Those ladies at the church take child care seriously. Mercedes went there when she was little and she knew how to read and write small words by the time she hit pre-k. She also swears that those ladies are the reason she did so good in French. They had the kids watching Muzzy and Madeline in addition to Dora and Diego. At first Dani-Mom was only taking the twins to the day care in the mornings. She would pick them up on her way home at lunch time. I dreaded lunch time with a wicked passion. With it being summer, mom wasn’t working. She had been offered and accepted a full time teaching position at the middle school so she was still being paid, but with everything on the parental plate, she had decided to take a summer job. She worked mornings at Antwan Berry’s law firm. 

Mom and Dani-Mom decided that since they both had afternoons free, those afternoons would be the perfect time for school shopping. Now Puck and I both kind of assumed that the shopping would be for Triple S and Tessa. After all, we were going to college and even though we had grown a little and gotten a little buffer over the summer…we had plenty of clothes. Apparently we were wrong. Stevie, Noah and I were all forced to get a million pairs of new jeans. Okay so it was just ten, but still. Then there were khakis, and black and navy slacks. Then regular shirts and tee shirts and polos and dress shirts and ties that complimented the suits we already had. Poor Stevie had out grown both of his newest suits so he had to get two more new, new suits. We had to get new underwear, and new socks and new pajamas…which both Puck and I tried to explain were pretty much a waste of money. But neither mom listened. And Becs just cosigned everything in the evenings. I guess we couldn’t complain too much, Mercy ended up with a whole bunch of pretty new nighties and lingerie.

In addition to the shopping we had like three doctors’ appointments each. Puck and I had our regular physical; we also had an inoculation appointment where we were turned into pin cushions. Apparently before you go to college you have to have every shot you’ve ever received ‘boosted’. Since we had no history of STDs…Puck was very proud of the fact that he had never caught anything…we also got the HPV vaccine. Dani-Mom confided that she had gotten Mercy’s doctor to give her the vaccine as soon as she was old enough. Then there was the ear, nose and throat doctor and I almost forgot about the hearing checkup and the optometrist. Mercy had all those appointments and she had to go back to her lady doctor for her birth control shot. Her doctor also gave her the name of an OBGyn she could see in New York since her next shot came way before we would be home for Thanksgiving. The parents decided that it was a great idea to have the kids all checked out too. By Friday they were finally finished with all the poking and prodding and Mercy, Puck and I all had brand new glasses. But we only had to wear them when we were doing intensive reading or when we were using the computer or tablets for longer than an hour or so. 

Once we had all the clothes the moms decided we needed and our medical needs and forms had been completed and submitted, the moms turned their attention to getting us packed. Unfortunately that made them -and us- realize that other than Mercedes, we didn’t really have luggage…per se. That led to more shopping. The best part was that Dani-Mom looked at how many clothes Mercy had that she was planning to take with her and decided that she needed another full set of luggage too. My mom suggested a quick Kohl’s run…she loved that place and hadn’t been there in a while. The fact that we ended up getting more clothes was just my luck. Cedes found a rolling five piece zebra print set that seemed to be the perfect foil for her current purple set. Puck fell head over heels for a charcoal hard sided five piece expandable set. I was the last to find a set I wanted…primarily because I didn’t really like the price tag to recognizability ratio of the name brand, and thus the chance of it lasting long enough for me to feel like I got my money’s worth was doubtful. I changed my mind when I finally found a great five piece set of black Samsonite luggage that actually nested inside each other. 

Thursday we got some kind of bad news. They were behind schedule on the house. The wrong hard wood had been delivered and it had to be sent back. Then it took them a minute to get the upgraded Brazilian Cherry we’d ordered. Supposedly the delay would only push the home inspection back one week, closing would be pushed back two days and the house tour would take place on the thirteenth. That meant that we’d have to move in the very next day. Tessa and Triple S had to be back in Lima that weekend because Lima City schools started on the twentieth. Finn, Burt and Carole needed to be back that by that Friday to get Finn to Columbus for his move in day on Saturday. We were good with that. It would be kind of tight, but it wasn’t too bad. 

Puck had texted Ryan and let the Cohens know what was going on, but it really didn’t affect his move in date. He wasn’t scheduled to move in until the day before freshman orientation began. He was still on track for college and wasn’t wallowing too much. Seth had not gotten into Brown, his dream school, but he had gotten into Princeton. With Ryan going to Columbia, no way was Seth going to stay home…though he had considered it when Ryan had looked like he was crawling into despair. Instead, Seth was going to be an hour and a half away and according to him, we would see him every weekend. 

In the midst of all our shopping, Mercedes, along with Kurt, Tina and Santana was planning an epic shopping spree that Tina was hoping to win off the pop station out of Dayton. You could have knocked me over with a feather when that dude called her name. I do not know who was happier in that moment, Mercy, Kurt or Tina herself. After the spree, and Tina treating everyone to a gift or two, Kurt, Tana, my loves and I were all talking as we drove back to Lima. Of course things turned to our move. Kurt was ecstatic. “My uncle…mom’s brother…”

“The one married to the conservative bitch who wouldn’t let you visit anymore after you came out?” Mercy clarified slightly angrily. 

“Yes.” Kurt smirked. “Anyway he divorced her. I even wrote a letter to the family court judge on his behalf so that Bonnie the Hag didn’t get the kids or a dime outside the prenup. In thanks, he is paying for my FIT tuition.”

“That’s awesome.” We all said at pretty much the same moment. Kurt’s grandparents had turned his mother’s portion of their estate into his college fund before they passed away, but it was designed to handle his tuition and everything for one school…not for two. His trust fund paid out dividends monthly that he would live on, and he had been planning to use those to pay for his FIT classes; but he would be a lot better off without having to be so frugal, which was just not in his nature. 

Santana drew all our attention over to her “So…now that we’ve gotten the full financial aid packet…how much did you get in the school scholarships? I ended up with fifteen grand I didn’t expect from ten different alumni or old dead ass people I’ve never even heard of. It got me down to like seventeen grand on my parents…now I just have to send thank you cards to them all…you’re still supposed to do that right?” 

We all nodded. I realized that I hadn’t done that yet, other than thanking Mr. Cohen to the point that he was ready to pop me if I said thank you one more time. “Mercy, have you sent yours yet?” 

“Yup…and you can thank me nicely because all you two have to do is sign your names to yours.” She crowed. I was beyond grateful. Mercy had to do a total of thirteen of those. The fact that she took the time to do the five for Noah and my three too was just so awesome. 

“You take care of us so well, Mercy-mine.” I smiled. “When I went online to see how much was left, Mr. Cohen had already taken care of it…so I know how much I got from the scholarships and grants I applied for in Mrs. Haskins’ class, but I don’t know if I got any from the school.” 

“I am so jealous right now.” Puck groaned. “If it weren’t for Bubbie hitting Vegas, I’d be up to my ass in loans. After the scholarships and shit, I still had like thirty thousand a year I needed.” He groaned. “I had saved enough that I could handle, maybe three a year for me. At least before this summer.” 

I couldn’t hold back a smirk. I never realized that catalogue and magazine modeling paid so well. By the time we had left Chicago, I had eight grand just in my solo checking account. We’d saved at least that much for Mercy’s engagement ring too. By the time we left LA, we’d doubled that. Probably we had enough…but we were kind of scared to spend any of our savings before we’d done the whole tax thing. Besides, we hadn’t really started pumping her for information to find out what kind of things she wanted in her ring. Both Puck and I had talked with our respective benefactors about paying for some of our education ourselves. Mr. Cohen had at least been polite in his refusal, but Bubbie and Becah had torn Puck a new one. By the time they had finished with him, Mercy and I had had to blow him for over an hour before he was finally back to his usual state of Puck. 

I thought about something and heard the words that were in my brain slip out of my mouth. “So…is it wrong that as much as I’m gonna miss my family…I can’t wait until next weekend?” 

Mercy giggled. “I know…once the parents head home, I don’t have to be quiet when I cum. I haven’t been able to have a full on, ‘lose my mind’ orgasm in my own bed since April.” 

Santana rolled her eyes. “I’m just ready to sleep with Artie and Britts... for more than one night at a time.” 

Kurt cosigned that sentiment. “Though I do kind of worry that living together will cause…a fracturing of our relationship; they do say that familiarity can breed contempt.”   
I shook my head. “You and Blaine are a lot more solid than you realize. You have friendship underlying your romantic relationship…that gives it strength. That gives it backbone.” 

“If you want it to last…put in the work. As much time as you spend on your moisturizing, your should spend at least that much time showing your boo how you feel about him.” Puck said reasonably. “That will make sure that he feels appreciated. I know you aren’t a chick, but you sure forget that when you want to…you always expect Anderson to take the lead and run shit…every now and then flip that shit on him and you run the bedroom.” 

Kurt looked thoughtful. “Thank you Puck.” He finally said though the look of thoughtfulness didn’t leave his face. “I’m looking very forward to the future…but I’m not sure how to avoid falling back into the old habits all the time.” 

The whole car went quiet at that thought. That was the hardest part of growing up…actually doing it.


	9. So Long Sweet Summer (Dashboard Confessional) & Roses (OutKast)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For more information on NPD, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, please visit:  
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder or  
> http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/narcissistic-personality-disorder

Chapter 9  
So Long Sweet Summer (Dashboard Confessional)  
Puck Point of View

Moving was, is, and ever will be a logistical nightmare. Mainly because we chose to make it that way. Moms D wanted to hire a moving company and put all the hard shit in their hands. All we would have had to do was pack and point. At first the dads seemed down with that, up until they started seeing the quote for how much it would cost. Then George and Sander vetoed that idea; pointing out that it was less than half the cost to rent a UHaul, load it ourselves in Lima, and only hire movers to unload it at the new house. We all kind of thought it was a great idea…especially when Mills told us that she could get us some unloaders from a company she had worked with in the past. They were licensed, bonded and would do a great job. 

Kurt made it both better and worse. He had the idea of turning loading the UHaul into a kind of a party…though Mom called it more of a co-op. Mike and Tina were scheduled to leave the same weekend we were, so an exchange of labor was arranged. Adams was going to come and help, too in exchange for Finn and Lauren’s help the following weekend. James was going to come back and help Quinn load up and she would drive with them to New Haven. By the last Sunday in August, Lima would be the empty of all the old hat New Directions and even the oldest of the newbies. It was a strange thought, but I knew we’d all be keeping in touch. Hell, the NYC contingent had no excuse. The parents had decided that we’d need to have the experience of taking care of bills. To get us trained in the matter, we were to be responsible for our own cell phone bills. However, as usual, our parents didn’t keep their brilliant ideas to themselves. They shared it with all our friends’ parents. So, with help from Wheels, all 15 of us ended up with new iPhone 5s… we decided that if we all had the same ability to face time and all have the same apps, it would be easier to do silly but fun shit together, no matter how far apart we actually were. Plus Siri was bound to be a big help learning our way around a city like New York or San Francisco or where ever the hell Berkeley and Stanford actually are. 

It was still tripping me out how different everything was than we thought it would be. I was no longer the only dad among my friends. Granted, Az was a lot more of a hands on father than I was. The Adams family had totally shifted everything around for him to have his daughter. Not just creating a nursery and getting custody…but arranging things so that Robyn and Adams could be together year round. The original plan was for Adams to go to school and leave the baby with his parents…driving the hour and a half home every weekend. But that plan was just too much separation for old boy. He’d emailed me before we got back to ask me how I handled it. I wasn’t much help. The very nature of having had to give Beth up for adoption made me grateful for every second of time I got to spend with her. I knew that technically Shelby didn’t have to share her life with us. I was happy as hell that she had, and I was dreading not being near Beth, Mara and Maea my damn self…and two of them weren’t even really mine. I told him that he basically had two options; he could deal and spoil her on weekends, or find a way to be a full time daddy without trading the long term for the short. 

His family had talked everything through, not just his mom and dad but his whole family. They found a cousin who was in need of a change. Adams mom and dad and his cousin’s mom and dad helped her move and get an apartment with three bedrooms near CSU. Since the cousin worked from home as a technical writer for some company that made a better widget or something, she would watch the baby when Az was in class. He was a little worried because he didn’t really remember the chick, but he figured that if that plan didn’t work out…ie ‘if she was as much of a hobag as Alizay’, his words not mine…then they would go back to the drawing board before his second year. 

When it came to moving us to college, everything was planned out to the very last detail. The moms were flying to New York on Saturday morning with the twins, Triple S and Artie. Moms D was still not supposed to lift much more than the combined weight of the twins. Angel Mom sure as hell couldn’t lift shit for like six more months or so. My mom was going on the plane with them because, hey, twin infants and three other kids under twelve. Artie was flying because it was way easier on him than riding in a car for ten hours when he didn’t have to. But the three Commune Moms weren’t the only ones flying; all the moms of the NYC crew were taking the plane. Most of the dads were flying back with them. Since they wouldn’t be with us for the bulk of the work, they had created detailed itineraries and planned everything out so well that we had diagrams and pictures to work off of. 

That Saturday morning, Benton and Santiago drove the flyers down to Dayton very, very early in the morning. After seeing them into the car, Sexy Mama, Sammy Boy and I headed back into the house and got back into bed. We weren’t sleepy. We just boned until we had to get up. Then we decided to get some in the shower and ended up running way behind. Kurt and Anderson were scheduled to be at the Jones House at ten for us all to ride together to meet George, Sander and the rest of the crew at the storage unit that held almost all of our furniture for the two main households of the duplex. Thank Yeshiva Kurt still had his key, cause me and Sam didn’t make it downstairs until almost ten thirty. The gay bros came baring gifts. The Anderson family housekeeper had prepared breakfast sandwiches for one and all. As we were eating those and guzzling OJ, Cedes came down looking sexy as hell. She’d thrown on a purple tank top and black running shorts with purple stripes down the side. Her legs were bare, long and almost shined before they disappeared into a pair of purple low top converse all stars. Even ready to work she was looking hot like fire. Granted she was only working for most of the day. She was due at Veronica’s at six. Ms. Roni was taking out the short weave and deep conditioning Cede’s real hair that night. Sexy Mama had an appointment with Ms. Veronica’s cousin who had a shop in Harlem. Said cousin was a ‘Queen’ named Ricki who was supposedly looking very forward to meeting Cede and her boys. 

After breakfast we headed to the storage unit place Benton had picked out. He had been determined to find one that was climate controlled and had units big enough that he would only need to rent one. The one he had found not only met those criteria, it also rented UHauls, so for us it was hella-efficient. Once Hell-Bent had all the paperwork completed, George drove the largest one around to our unit. We’d actually rented two different UHauls. The twenty-six foot truck would contain the furniture. The Moms had left us explicit directions on how to pack it. All the furniture that had been delivered to the unit over the summer had been left in its plastic or cardboard coverings since we were moving it from Lima to Harlem. Moms D decided that it would be best to put the first floor furniture in first so it would be at the very back. In the middle would be the shit that was to go on the second floor and at the front would be the third floor furnishings. That way the loaders would be able navigate the stairs while they were still fresh and shit. 

That made sense to all of us and we knew they would have a shit fit if we didn’t listen, so we did it their way. It took us about three and a half hours to get all the furniture into the huge ass moving van. Then we had a lunch break and went to work on the smaller, seventeen foot van. The smaller van was filled in much the same way, boxes of décor and all the non-furniture shit, like our desktops and other electronics for the first floor went in first. Then Burt drove it to each of our parents’ houses and the luggage sets went in last. The entire luggage thing was funny as hell. Sam and I each had the sets we’d gotten the other day, we were sharing Sam’s steamer trunk for our shoes, we each had one of two really cool real duffle bags Sander had seen in an Army/Navy surplus store and we’d borrowed Benton’s garment bag for our suits and the tuxes. That was all that we had to put into the truck. Artie was pretty much the same, just minus the duffle bag and add in a big ass gym bag. Brittany wasn’t too much worse than Artie. The rest… two complete sets and two garment bags for Mercedes, plus her steamer trunk and mine full of more shoes than I consider necessary… even if some of them are sexy as hell… and the lingerie chest she had found at Kohls the day we got our new luggage, three seven piece sets for Santana and some other boxes. Anderson had two matching seven piece sets and a big ass box of shoes. However the winner of the ‘way too much fucking luggage’ award went to Kurt Hummel. He had his one complete set of luggage, an ass load of boxes that he said housed his shoes and eight big ass ‘wardrobe moving’ boxes. It was truly ridiculous. 

Once we finally got all that shit put in the trucks, the trucks were driven to the Anderson home; they had the bombass security system and they had the hella-tall fence… it was the safest place for the trucks to wait. Anyway once that was all done, we headed to the Chang household. The Changs and the Cohen-Chang had gone in together and rented one ten foot UHaul truck to get both of our Asian friends to their schools. Dropping Sexy Mama off at Veronica’s on the way, we helped Mike pack his stuff into the back of his UHaul before heading to AwA and getting her stuff all in the truck too. That done, we all split up and showered before grabbing Mercy back up and the fourteen graduated New Directions all went to the Old Barn Out Back for dinner. If we kept going there when even the girls were hungry enough to eat a buffalo, we were definitely going to get our asses banned. 

We didn’t have any firm plans, but we knew that we wanted to spend our last night in Lima together. Finn and Kurt exchanged a look; those two were as bad as twins about communicating nonverbally…but then again Finn didn’t always understand Kurt when he said shit so maybe it was better that way. Finn called Burt and suddenly we had a place to spend the night. Burt and Carole were good people. Carole was pretty much a second mom when I was growing up. I spent that much time at her and Finn’s house. She was already in Manhattan with the rest of the mothers. Burt must have decided that it was his turn to have us all congregate in their house. Though he did say that since Carole wasn’t there to make sure that he was up on time…that responsibility was on us. We could so do that shit. 

Once we had somewhere to go, we made some calls. Az had been with us most of the day…he was missing his ‘Little Bird-Girl’ and said his goodbyes. That was cool. Robyn needed her daddy. If it weren’t for the fact that Shelby, David and her parents had taken Beth to Mount Olympus Theme Park in Wisconsin, we’d probably be bothering Shelby for some time with her instead of chillin’ with our peeps. Tessa, Jake, and Aidan had all spent the morning helping us load the truck, but they had each had to go to work after we broke to eat lunch. Hell, the only reason Tessa had been able to get the time off to go with the family to take us to the new house was because her boss had taken a ride or three on the Zilla back in the day and I’d asked her to give my little sister the time off so she wouldn’t be left in Lima all by herself. Tugged on the broad’s heart strings, it worked and Tessa was going to NYC with the rest of the family. We started to call Kevin, until Lauren remembered that KJ and his boo Lori had already left with Lori’s family to take her to some chick’s school in South Carolina that all the women in her family always went to. Her dad was Anderson’s height and built like Kurt, so he’d jumped at Kevin’s offer to do Lori’s heavy lifting. 

In the sake of keepin’ shit real I had to admit, it was kind of better that way. For two years the New Directions had just been the twelve or thirteen of us. We were family…we loved the rest of the crew, but they were more like cousins. You kept in touch, you wanted the best for them, you were even willing to drop everything to help them if they needed you…but they could be kept in touch with by emails…once a week or even every other week…they were more peripheral. We loved them, but they hadn’t been through all the same shit we had together…they weren’t at the very core of us. 

But Finn and me, we were brothers…same with Mike and Artie--though I don’t care what Kurt says he’s more of a sister than a brother. Not necessarily because he was gay, but because we couldn’t do the same shit with him that we could with each other. Now Anderson…he was my brother-in-law, the rare kind you actually liked and invited to shit even when your sister didn’t make you. Those men were my bros. Tana, Britts, Lauren, AwA and Baby Mama…despite any and all sexual shit or whatever…those broads were my sisters. Sam and Cede those two are my heart and soul…my wife and my husband. No matter what amount of time, how far the distance, we might be limited to phone calls and face time and Skype, but we’ll do that shit probably on the daily and not out of some sense of obligation either, but because we miss their stupid asses. 

There was a time when the only real bro I had was Finn. Mike and Matt were kind of like play cousins…cool to hang out with but not secrets-sharing bros. Now Mike, Finn, Sam, Artie and I don’t really have any secrets. Well except the shit we get up to with our lovers. Some of that we don’t share with anybody. Some of the stuff Cede, Sam and I were doing was shit Cede would kill us both if we told anyone about…even in the crew. Even though I know that she tells her ‘sisters’ a lot more than she will let Sam and me tell the bros. those thoughts of our forged family made me think of my mom and Bubbie. 

Thinking of the two of them and I smiled a little at the surprise I had set up for Mom. I had gone behind my mom’s back and she was either gonna hug me to death or beat me to death for doing it. I had earned more money over the course of the summer than I ever thought to have at one time in my entire life. I pretty much had to do something good for the woman who raised me. It had taken me some time to figure out how to help her…something I could do for her that she would never so for herself. It came to me the other day when she stopped packing to watch that TLC Show where the brides go to Klienfield’s and try to pick out their perfect dresses. She loved that show and I was almost positive that she dreamed of going there but figured that her thousand dollar budget was too small to go to the huge ass wedding dress Mecca. I’d gone online and arranged it all. Since she and the other ladies pretty much had Monday morning free while we drove into the city, I made my mom an appointment at Klienfield’s and prepaid five grand for her to find the dress of her dreams. She could take as many of the other mothers with her as she wanted. 

I had actually intended to use my money to get all my shit for school, but she and Bubbie had gone ape shit on my ass when I made the suggestion that I would pay for some of what they were planning to pay for and they could keep their money for more important shit. Apparently to their way of thinking, they only had so much time left to take care of me…now that things are better Mom wants to do what she can to make up for all that she couldn’t do before. Man, there was so much feeling talk that day. Bubbie fussing and even crying over Skype. Mom looking all sad but fiercely proud. She cried too. Hell, by the time they finished with me, I might have cried a tear or two myself. Shit it was just nice to know that my mom finally saw me…just me…when she looked at me. Not only was I finally just Noah, but I had made her proud. Then to top it off, Sam and Cede had been so worried about me, I may have been a little shocked still, but it got me one hell of a double blow job. For over an hour Sexy Mama and Sammy Boy used their sexy ass mouths to drive me out of my fucking mind over and over again before they finally let me cum. Then they did one of my favorite things they kissed each other sharing my cum in a fucking hot ass snowball thing. Damn that was one awesome day. 

I shook off those thoughts before I could get a boner and paid attention to the silliness my boos and our friends were getting up to. We were all spread out around the Hudson-Hummel basement. Since we needed to be back up and about early the next morning, we all agreed that there was no way we could risk getting lit. However, since Finn was all packed up too…they wouldn’t be home long between getting back from taking Kurt before they had to leave with the Zizes to take Finn and Lauren to Columbus…so we had to make our own fun. Cede came up with a variation of Truth or Dare that she called ‘Tell the Truth if you Dare’. “Alright the rules are simple. Each round one of us gets to ask Truths of all the others. We have to answer the questions truthfully. If you can’t/won’t answer then you have to do a dare from the oh-so-warped mind of Santana Admira Lopez. Que, if it is Tana who pussies out, you have to create the dare. Dares must stay confined to the basement or kitchen of this house.” 

We all agreed to the rules and Hummel went first. His questions were all pretty innocent, mostly about our feelings or college shit. He passed the ball to Anderson. BA was a little more creative…but still stayed to finding out shit that served to cement his place in the social pack. He got Tana though when he finished off by asking her, “is there anything you’ve done to any one in this room that you felt so bad about, you’d go back and change it if you could?”

Santana looked thoughtful. “I’d go back and tell myself not to convince Britts that it was okay to do sexy stuff with me while she was with A-Team. They have forgiven me…and we’re all together now. But I know that I hurt them both a lot with that bullshit.” Of course Santana used her turn to take shit to the raunchy side. But she focused on supposition and fantasy. “You, Girl-Chang, if you could have any of the other type of relationship…limited to the varieties in this room, so what chick on chick, guy-chick-guy, or chick-guy-chick…which would it be, and who would you want it with?”

AwA blushed hot as hell before she squared her shoulders and answered, “two girls with one guy, me, Mike and Mercedes.”

“I want to point out that I knew that shit. Just like I know that if I had asked Boy Chang…the answer would have been the same, exact, thing.” Satan crowed. 

Mike leaned over and kissed Tina sweetly. “She may be evil, but she’s not wrong.” He admitted unconcernedly. Santana finished her round with Mike, making him confess his favorite fantasy, realized or not. “Sometimes, I get off thinking about what it would be like if one of these parties got really, really nasty. How we’d do it…who’d do what with who…how I’d love to watch Tina with Mercedes or Santana with Brittany…maybe even watch Lauren own my sexy girlfriend.” He finally finished quietly. Then it was his turn. Mike’s queries were mainly a mix of raunch and feels, like when he asked Sexy Mama how she felt about Tina’s previous confession. By the time everybody had gone we were all too sleepy to do much more than try to reconcile the new shit we’d learned about each other…some of it more information than we wanted or needed to know…I never needed to know that I had once been Hummel’s fantasy guy; when he moved here and defended Kurt against Dave, Sam had edged me out by just a hair or two. Nor did I need to know that Lauren is secretly into bukkake, or she thought she was and kind of wanted to find out. Maybe there really was such a thing as too much porn. 

Morning came early. I knew we were all looking forward, but a part of each of us didn’t want to let that last moment of togetherness fade into the past. 

Roses (OutKast)  
Rachel Point of View

It was almost time. My summer had been spent in intensive introspective counseling… and unfortunately it took place while I was incarcerated in a facility that specialized in ‘inpatient therapy’. I spent ten weeks imprisoned, trapped at the behest of my fathers. I learned very little from the staff there, other than the fact that the difference between a therapist and a psychiatrist lied in the intelligence quotient and the ability to get into a fully accredited medical school. I was ‘fortunate’ enough to experience the ‘care of both my usual psychiatrist and one of the pathetic, doleful, wrongheaded, inpatient therapist employed in the Kosar Mental Health Center of the Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare Hospital. 

Between the two of them, I was labeled with the obviously erroneous diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder with an accompanying persecution complex. Apparently my unwavering belief that my talent, poise, grace, beauty and intelligence make me superior to those peons and incompetent troglodytes I used to call my friends was in and of itself a form of insanity. I did not agree with their insinuations. Just because I was the epitome of Nietzsche’s Super Human did not make me ‘crazy. I also disagreed with their proclamations that I was wrong in my belief that Kurt and Mercedes had only pretended to be my friends in order to find out how to best keep me from achieving the greatness that was destined to be mine. It seemed as if it was to be my lot in life to be continually misunderstood by those around me and yet subject to their intolerable demands. Those so called professionals even dared to claim that I was the one cultivating the friendships in an attempt to oppress Mercedes and Kurt. As if there were any need. 

My first few days were spent being poked, prodded and subjected to a multitude of annoying, useless medical tests. The ‘doctors’ associated with the ‘medical facilities’ of the hospital, were very unhappy with the results. While I was very proud of my very toned body and grateful for the fact that I had never had to consistently suffer the indignities and pain of menstruation, the doctors seemed to think that ‘one and a half percent body fat was entirely too low and had led to a chemical and hormonal imbalance that exacerbated my mental condition’. One such individual actually suggested that it was somehow wrong of me to maintain a healthy weight through almost constant exercise and severe dietary restrictions. He informed me that after talking with my therapists, it had become apparent to him that I might be maintaining my inflexible schedule of ballet, jazz, and tap classes and my vegan diet-not because I was in any way devoted to setting goals for myself and meeting them—but because I was trying to control and combat any and every aspect of my body’s maturation. They also found some sort of issue that caused them to have a very long meeting with both my fathers and Shelby Cochran, but I was never made privy to that discussion. 

The second week of my ‘therapy’ saw the therapist and Dr. Warner establishing a schedule that I was forced to adhere to with almost draconian rigidity. I had hour long sessions with my psychiatrist twice a week with visits to the therapist the other three week days. During my time at Twin Valley, I was also forced to take part in several group therapy sessions every week. One of said group sessions was for people with eating disorders. The effrontery of certain people. Perhaps if I had been as large as Mercedes or Lauren, they would have been happy. They also forced me to change my diet. Apparently my veganism was supposedly harming my health. As if the healthiest lifestyle on the planet could be creating any of my alleged problems. They forced me to consume fish and other poor, unfortunate sea creatures. I was also forced to practice dance, or do any form of exercise for only thirty minutes a day…my singing was restricted not long after I was confined…they claimed that my vocal exercises upset the other patients. 

But despite the idiocracy and the plebian thinking of my fathers and the captors they had turned me over to, I persevered; I overcame the trappings of their ‘sanity’. I knew that they would never allow my freedom until I behaved as if I truly believed the therapist’s assertion that "it was the height of unwarranted hubris" for me to feel entitled to the accolades they received over me. That misguided soul suggested on a daily basis that I should somehow feel "content" to watch those lesser beings flourish in ways I haven't managed to as of yet...when all the time it was I, Rachel Berry, who deserved the aforementioned accolades more. During one of our earliest sessions, I was nice enough to bestow a vocal performance upon her; to show her the magnitude of my talent; she responded that I had ‘a nice voice, though it wasn’t to her taste’. My voice was to the taste of anyone with refined hearing. I knew in that moment that I would have to look on this as a study in acting. I would have to give the performance of my life. I would have to learn to better portray their version of ‘normal’, of ‘sane’ so that I would never again have to even visit such a place again. 

Despite the staff’s day time attempts to hold me back, at night I was blessed alone. It was during that time, when I had little outside stimulation, I was able to increase my range by half an octave. I had also reached the realization that when I moved to the city of my dreams it would be an excellent opportunity to start over completely. No one in New York knew me. I could create an entirely new, though equally stunning, talented and ambitious, persona to present the proper image to my new neighbors and classmates. Best of all was that while I was busy creating said persona, and using the things I had learned during my summer vacation to build better relationships with people who would provide me the adulation and validation that the New Directions used to give me before Mercedes Jones wrecked everything... I lost myself in rage at even the mental mention of that unfairness.

When I calmed down I wondered for a moment who had caused the disarray on my bed. As I repacked my clothes I continued my train of thought. Yes, while I built those connections and relationships, those New Directions who were moving their debauchery to Manhattan would be easily lulled into a false sense of security. 

As I bided my time, I would ascertain the best way to go about rectifying the injustices they had perpetrated against me. Kurt would soon find himself kicked from the hallowed halls of NYADA in time for me to audition for the empty spot he left behind. I still cannot believe that Carmen Thibodaux had the gall to take a restraining order out against me. I was simply trying to compel her to give me another chance. I suppose she was jealous of my vast amounts of talent, after all don’t they say that those who can do and those who can’t teach? Nevertheless, Mercedes Jones would soon find that the music industry is a vagarious bitch. Her contract would not be worth the paper it was written upon by the time I finished making my mark on the scene. After all, that lucrative opportunity really should go to someone more deserving; perhaps I would cultivate the connections in the Tisch program to step into that avenue to fame, wealth and fortune as well.

I was unconcerned with Santana. If I waited patiently, I was sure that very soon her proclivities would see her, probably along with Arthur and Brittany, stricken with some incurable sexually transmitted disease or infection. I find it impossible to believe that she would be able to remain faithful for long, even within the loose boundaries of the pseudo-monogamy she, Artie and Brittany were engaged in. Of even less consideration were Artie and Brittany. No one in the entertainment industry would ever take a wheelchair bound paraplegic or an idiot savant seriously. 

The only blight on my great and numerous plans was the fact that I was unable to have any input on the subject of where I would be living for the first year of the rest of my life. Because of my time in the Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare Hospital, my fathers handled finding an apartment that would be my home for the next stage of my life. The arrangements were finalized before I even had a chance to explain to them which parts of the city I was willing to live in. My fathers brought me the information, including a three dimensional representation of the apartment’s floor plan and layout when they came to pick me up on the day I was released. 

I was shocked to find that my fathers had gone completely against all of my plans. Rather than some quaint little pre-war loft, walk up in the West Village, or even a basement studio in the East Village…I would have even considered a studio in the midst of Hells Kitchen…the apartment my fathers had found for me was in Brooklyn of all places, Flatbush. I’d never even heard of such a place. “I very much hope that you are able to get your money back if you have already paid anything for this…this…place.”

Daddy looked at me, his glare not lessened at all by the fact that it was reflected in the rearview mirror. “Tone, Rachel…you need to watch your tone.” He said very sternly. “The first thing that has to change is that you need to remember is that we are your parents. For too long we let you get away with talking to us as if we were your brothers or your friends or some subjects in a kingdom that you ruled. Your Papa and I have learned from our mistakes while you were supposed to be learning from yours. You will live in the apartment you have in your hands…that is the one we are paying for. If you don’t like it, get a job and pay for your own place of your own choosing.”

I gulped and looked at my other father. But there was little help coming from that quarter. “Look Rachel, the apartment you will be living in may not be in the ‘cool’ area of the city, but it will give you more space and a full kitchen. In Brooklyn we were able to afford a two bedroom, eight hundred square foot apartment. In Manhattan, the best we could afford was a studio loft that was maybe three hundred and fifty square feet with a microfridge and a two eye stove top, no oven, no freezer, barely any counter space. While we are paying your rent and utilities and giving you an allowance so that you will not have to work and can focus on your studies, there isn’t enough money in the budget for you be able to afford to eat out constantly.”

I sighed. I preferred not to eat out very often any way…many places that claimed to offer vegan options were not as careful about their ingredients as I liked. One thing I would not do now that I was free of that well-appointed hellhole was continue to eat any sort of animal. “Thank you.” I tried to say graciously. It was only for a year, and perhaps by the time the lease was up, I would be able to find something affordable in a neighborhood I wanted to actually live in. After all, Mr. Schuester had managed to find an apartment in the East Village, and he made far less than my fathers. 

Both Daddy and Papa looked relieved that I was willing to be reasonable. They also looked a little proud, though why I wasn’t sure. I was always a very reasonable person. “Will I be taking my furniture from home?” I asked to move the conversation forward. 

Both men shook their heads. “No. Your furniture is very heavy and it would not be cost effective to move it and then replace it here. Instead, we found an Ikea that will deliver to your new apartment. We should be able to get your whole apartment done up nicely and stay on budget.”

I fought hard, used every bit of my incomparable acting skill, and managed to keep the disdain off my face. I was not a fan of the Swedish cardboard and veneer furnishings, but my struggles as a starving artist and student would be great reading in my autobiography one day. We discussed further plans and I found myself getting excited despite the disappointments. I would pack the bulk of my clothes and toiletries in boxes that we would then ship to the apartment on the day we flew out. I would take some things with me on our flight…just a carry on with clothes for a few days, and my laptop, cell phone and iPad. When we got to New York, we’d go shopping at Ikea and have them deliver and set everything up. I was more than a little perturbed to learn that I would have to make do with my two year old laptop and iPad. It didn’t seem proper that they were sending me off to school with such antiquated materials. I suppose that I could have purchased more updated technology with some of the money I received for graduation, but it wasn’t that important to me. 

We were scheduled to fly out the morning of the twenty third, which would only give me forty-eight hours before the start of my orientation activities. Daddy had to be back in Lima well before the activities culminated on the first. I hoped to be able to use the guilt that that turn of events would cause to my advantage. My fathers had already made a list of the things I would need and included a few extras but their list was not nearly as long as my own. I had rather expected to go shopping for apparel as well as household needs. The rest of the week was filled with organizing and packing, with readying myself for the future and attempting to find a way to put my time in Twin Valley behind me. I read over the lease that my fathers had signed for me. It seemed rather standard. They would be paying a little over fifteen hundred dollars a month in rent and seventy five dollars for the ‘included’ water. The rest of my utilities should cost my dads around five hundred a month. I would work on Papa to see if I could convince him to raise the allowance Daddy had set at five hundred dollars every month to at least five hundred dollars every other week. That should allow me to eat well and dress well. I will need to convey the proper image to make the proper connections. 

As I packed my apparel neatly in several boxes and my perfectly matched pale pink luggage set with my personalized gold star luggage tags, I thought through all the attempts I had made thus far, unsuccessful though they turned out to be, to redress the ills I’d suffered. I had thoroughly underestimated the deviousness and ruthlessness of my enemies. Mercedes Jones and Kurt Hummel had managed to circumvent years of diligent study and planning. They had managed to, somehow, undermine me at the NYADA and Juilliard auditions. Mercedes had managed to lure Finn from my side by pointing that leviathan Lauren at him. She gave him no choice in the matter at all. I wonder if there was anyway someone else can report a rape. I wasn’t the victim, but surely as a concerned citizen I should be able to notify the police of Lauren’s despicable treatment of Finn. If I were the one to free him from her victimization, I was certain he would find his way back to me. 

I needed a happy foil to provide me with the adulation and worship that I deserved and Finn would serve nicely. He could be counted upon to give me his usual level of adoration and control…until I found someone more worthy and worthwhile…perhaps a director or producer. Planning came easily to me. I would not underestimate my adversaries in the future. The simple truth was that I had been using high school weapons on a pair of adversaries who had managed to create a coalition of adults to provide them with tools beyond my own. I still had trouble understanding how they had turned my fathers to their side. It could not be that my dads felt my actions were against their strong moral code. I had spent my entire youth studying to learn what would cause censure and what would not. I had stayed within the lines…for the most part. Yet the first time I didn’t and they gained knowledge of it, I was relegated to ‘intensive inpatient therapy. That was hardly fair. Then the second such infraction saw them escalate me all the way up to and even longer stay at Twin Valley.

I was always completely honest with myself, so I had to acknowledge that I had done many things that my fathers would have frowned upon, had they known of them. However, they are my parents. IF I was wrong to the point of needing the kind of therapy they keep consigning me to, it must be their fault…after all, they raised me. When do they take some ‘personal responsibility’ for how I turned out? Though I really saw nothing wrong with how I turned out. I was more talented, more intelligent, better mannered and more attractive than either Mercedes or Kurt, and definitely more so than the rest of the ‘gleeks’. It is why they all hate me. As Nietzsche once said, ‘Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.’ He was also responsible for the other quotes that have shaped my life thus far. “Morality is the Herd instinct in the individual’ and ‘Fear is the mother of morality’. I still remember the shift I experienced when I was seven and I read those quotes in a book of my fathers’. I knew then that I had no reason not to do anything and everything I could to achieve my dreams. I was destined for greatness. Destined to be better and more than all others. In order to have the future I was destined to have; the future that my great beauty, poise and talent guaranteed; I would have to remind the world that there is no brighter star in the sky than that of Rachel Barbra Berry’s. Anyone who tries to disagree…will force me to take some very unpleasant action.


	10. Ready, Set, Don’t Go (Billy Ray & Miley Cyrus) & Home (Stephanie Mills)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gracias to all who leave Kudos or Reviews  
> Merci Beaucoup to my Betas KayBee 80 & Illiandyandra  
> Thank you Veiland, An Evanovich FF author, for the cameo of one Original Rangemen from her Change the Wind Series  
> Hgabul1…you give some of the best reviews…they never fail to make me giggle. That old school Days of Our Lives reference just did it for me.

Heads up. Gotta give DOUBLE the LOVE to my Betas since I totally forgot to give credit where it was due before Chapter 9. I wanted to keep Berry’s crazy subtle…but Kay and Illy said ‘No…Go all in!’ So that is what I did.

Chapter 10  
Ready, Set, Don’t Go (Billy Ray & Miley Cyrus)  
Sander Point of View

There comes a point in every parent child relationship where the parent must let their child go out into the greater wide world without the fretters of parental control. When we had to take a look at our child and say ‘Son you’re a man now, my work is pretty much done. I love you, go with God’. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care how well you thought you’d done your job…if you were a parent worth the title, that moment was one of the hardest things you would ever face. It truly defined the word bittersweet. Nothing could have driven that point home to me more that my wife’s tears as she was getting ready to board a plane to the city where our oldest son would be attending college, living life on his own terms, in his own way. “You know you can ride with us. I’m sure that you’ll get more rest sleeping in our bed than in the hotel.” 

Gabbie smiled and looked at me her eyes shining with unshed tears. “No…I don’t want to watch the trucks get loaded…or have to see ‘em pack up the last of their things. That’s the hard part. It hurt like hell when they were just going to Chicago temporarily. I just can’t be watching that for real.” She sighed. 

“Sand-Man, I still remember when we brought him home from the hospital.” 

“Now he’s all grown up. But Baby, we did a damn fine job. Sam’s a good kid and he’s gonna be a great man…he needs this step to find the way from boy to man.” I hugged her tightly to me. 

“I know…but I’m not ready yet. He’s still my little boy.” She stuttered, trying not to cry. “He still bounces on the balls of his feet when he gets excited.”

“Come on Darlin’…Sam, the little boy he was, will always be your baby. No matter how grown he gets he will always be our son…and you still have Stevie and Stacey and this little one. Sam, the man he is becoming, belongs to Lil Mercy and Noah…you want grandbabies one day right?” I looked at her pointedly. 

“Why is it that whenever a mother is having a little trouble seeing their baby grow up, people always ask that question?” She finally laughed. “You realized that we may well have a grandbaby round the same time we’re sending our youngest off to school?” 

I smirked. “You’re still young enough that I might be able to have a grandbaby older than my youngest.”

“Only if you’re planning to carry and have the kid yourself. This baby here is the last one off this line and the factory is closing shop after it rolls out.” Gabbie said sternly. 

Truthfully, I agreed whole heartedly, but my original taunt had served its purpose. She was no longer sad. She got on the plane with the other mothers and Benton and I followed each other back to Lima. After getting the trucks all loaded, the kids went about their business…saying goodbye to their childhoods and hello to their futures. We dads decided to hang out in the Anderson study and drink some of Will’s very fine brandy. “Okay…so we’re pulling out tomorrow afternoon. George, you and Sander are driving the behemoth, Burt, you and Chris are driving its little brother.” Benton smiled at his own humor. 

“The kids are driving themselves in Mercedes’ Tahoe.” Santiago said with a grin. “Benton, Roger and Will, I guess that means you three are with me.”

I wondered as the grin turned to a smirk. “Lucy…you got some ‘splainin’ to do.” I chided in my best Desi Arnez. “You’re showing us all where Santana got her smirk from.”

Santiago laughed. “I should probably be offended…if only for the fact that I’m Puerto Rican not Cuban B…” he waited while I laughed at his Half Baked reference. “But your Desi wasn’t half bad. Anyway…after talking things over with Mari…I decided that rather than rent a car and leave it there like we’d originally planned…I’d drive the Cayenne and give it to Santana as a surprise. Let her, Artie and Brittany not have to always rely on Mercedes’ kindness. I’m sure that they may want to go on dates and such when Mercedes needs her car…or even a road trip by themselves. Mari and I are going to fly down to Miami before coming back. Thankfully this part of the summer is notoriously bad for planned surgeries.” 

It certainly wasn’t my place to point out that a college student having a Porsche was asking for trouble a little bit. Nor was it my place to ask if he had at least paid it off. So I kept my mouth shut. Mr. Anderson, however, simply chuckled. “You want one of those new Macans don’t you?” 

“So bad I can already picture myself behind the wheel.” Santiago laughed. “Besides, I’ve had the Cay paid off for over a year. The fact that I still have it is being discussed in a negative fashion at work. I’m up for head surgeon next year. Unfortunately appearance matters as much as skill to the board.”   
Will looked thoughtful. “Is Stephen Beck still on St. Rita’s board?” 

Santiago nodded with a wicked grin. “Beck and Jorgenstern head the selection committee. Jorgenstern is the one nominating me.” 

Anderson’s smile turned almost feral. “Beck is a racist asshole. He used to be on the board at Lima General until he made some ‘comments’ about Analyn. I saw to it that he was no longer welcome to serve on that board. I believe that I will ‘run into him’ at the club when we get back.” We all knew that Santiago would definitely get the position. He deserved it. Whenever he went into public and family members of one of his patients recognized him, he was lauded and praised as their savior. St. Rita’s had a much more favorable reputation in Lima. And, according to Danica, it seemed their star had started to rise shortly after Santiago Lopez had moved back to town. 

“So, anyway, back to our immediate plans, though Santiago, I definitely hope that you get the job…that would be so kickass.” Chris laughed. “Anyway, in the sake of fairness…cause everyone wants to ride in a Porsche, why don’t we switch the truck driver’s wing men on Monday? Sander and I tomorrow, Benton and Roger or Will can ride with George and Burt the next day. Besides, Benton and Will get to ride their Jags on a regular basis…they won’t really care about the whole luxury car thing.”

We all agreed with the second day switch. But then George smacked his head. “Sander you might get to ride in the Porsche both days anyway…unless Tessa wants to ride with you guys, I forgot that she was coming too. She had some trouble getting the time off, but Puck was able to talk her boss into being reasonable.” 

I nodded. “Why don’t you text her? See where she wants to ride.” 

He nodded and did as I suggested. His face went red. “Apparently, I’ve lost my mind if I think she would rather ride in the cab of a ‘wish it was a transfer truck’ over even the back seat of a Porsche.”

“Did she actually text that?” Roger asked in shock. Tessa was usually too respectful to say something like that even via text. 

“No, I extrapolated from the emoticon.” George laughed, turning the phone around to show us the shocked and appalled emoji which followed the words ‘Oh let me think…ride in a wannabe transfer truck or a modern, luxury engineering marvel…’. “Santiago…do you mind if Tessa rides with you guys? I mean, Mercedes would love to have her in the Tahoe, but that would either mean splitting up a couple or having Tessa not in a seat belt, sitting on the floor or something.” 

“It is not a problem.” Santiago laughed. “If she is anything like Santana, she will spend the entire time either texting with her boyfriend or on her tablet. Probably have her headphones in the entire time to avoid our ‘old fogies music’.” 

The rest of the evening was spent shooting the shit among friends. We decided to go and get something to eat since none of us wanted to eat our own cooking. “Should we give Hiram and Ant a call?” I asked as we started trying to figure out where we wanted to go. 

“Naw, Rachel gets released on Monday, they decided to go ahead and spend the weekend in Columbus.” Burt reminded us. 

I shook my head. I don’t think I would ever really like that girl. She had done too much to hurt my son’s Imzadi, but finding out what they had at the beginning of the summer had sucked so much for both Hiram and Shels, and it had explained a lot. Part of the reason Hiram and Antwan had been able to afford the hospital without hurting their ability to send Rachel to school was because they had allowed the doctors to make Rachel a part of a study to see if there are biological roots to certain psychological problems. It was a god send. Her summer in the hospital paid for, all the copays covered and all they had to do was allow them to map her DNA to see if she had chromosomal differences that showed in anyone else with similar diagnoses. Unfortunately it had showed some genetic abnormalities beyond anything any of them expected to find. Commonality where there shouldn’t have been. So one of their interns did some digging and found that both Shelby’s grandfather and Hiram’s grandmother had the same birthday and been rescued from the same concentration camp within a few hours after their birth. They were actually fraternal twins. Their mother had barely survived giving birth in that hell hole. According to a newspaper clipping and the adpotion paperwork the intern found online somewhere, she hadn’t lived much longer after she handed her children off to a solider wearing an American Flag on their uniform. None of the rest of their family had survived the camps…at least not that the soldiers could find. They were both adopted by good families and eventually had families of their own. 

No one would have ever guessed that the feelings of immediate trust and connection that had led Hiram and Antwan to choosing Shelby as their egg donor and surrogate existed because they were actually cousins. A gene that was recessive in both of them became dominant when it existed in the same person. That was the biological cause of Rachel’s schizotypal NPD. All three of them were feeling all kinds of guilt. Antwan felt it even more strongly than anyone else. He, out of love for his partner, wanted the child to have just as much chance of being Hiram’s as his own. But Hiram had wanted to use only Antwan’s genetic material…feeling that a biracial child would have been perfect for the interracial couple. Antwan felt extremely guilty for convincing Hiram to do as he wanted and Hiram felt guilty for not going with his own instincts. Shelby wasn’t sure why she felt guilty, just that she did. 

I felt bad for all three of them and even worse for the fact that they didn’t really feel as if they had any one to talk to at first. It had poured out of Hiram one night when he had gotten loaded at Avalons, a bar over on the other side of town. Antwan had been at home worried sick and drowning his own sorrows, so when Hiram had needed a designated driver, the bartender had grabbed his phone and texted me…not sure why he picked me, but I’d gone to help out my friend. Once the duo was sober, I’d convinced them to make their own appointment with Dr. Warner. It had definitely helped, not just with that problem, but also with their tendency to spoil their only child. The duo was actually considering finding another surrogate and having another baby. Danica, Gabbie and Coach Sylvester had shown them that it is never too late for the love of a child; they did state that should they ultimately decide to do so the woman would either be Hispanic or one of the many nationalities that came under the umbrella term ‘Asian’. Should the woman be black or white then they would only use one or the other and ensure the baby would be mixed. 

With a grin, I shook off my thoughts of the husbands Berry and focused on convincing the rest of the guys to order in. I succeeded, but how Will managed to convince the Café Milano that delivering dinner for seven men was actually catering was still beyond me. We finally ended up leaving the next morning when his housekeeper arrived to make us lunches for the trip. We were only a little hung over. So after some Advil and large amounts of water we drove home. Showering, packing and getting ready for the trip wasn’t that difficult. We carpooled over to the Anderson home. The kids rode in Mercy’s Tahoe, Santiago grabbed Roger, Burt and Chris on his way, while Benton, George, Tessa and I all rode over in Gabbie’s minivan. We had a very nice lunch before we loaded everything up and got on the road. 

We left Lima at two in the afternoon and arrived at the hotel we were stopping in for the night at a little after seven. We’d reserved a total of seven rooms at the Holiday Inn Express in Dubois, Pennsylvania. We all separated and checked in. The kids each got their rooms with their significant others. And we dads just doubled up. Santiago and Will bunked together. Benton and George got a room for them and Tessa, while Chris and Roger were roommates. That left Burt and I in the seventh room. After we got our bags into the rooms, we went back down and walked to the nearby Roadside Café and Creamery. The food was pretty good. It was plentiful and the waitresses were efficient, friendly and fun. Not one of them flirted with any of the men at the table which was a respect that didn’t always happen when the wives weren’t right next to us. The place had two mini golf courses, one inside that glowed in the dark, and one that was outside. We settled the tab and decided to play the indoor course. It was fun. Of course, the nature of the play caused a few inevitable reactions. Sam and Noah had had enough of watching Mercy bending down to get her purple ball and they talked her into heading back to the hotel. In fact, by the time we dads headed back, the only teenager who hadn’t disappeared was Tessa.

After closing the restaurant at the devastatingly late hour of nine o’clock, we walked the short distance back to the hotel and just relaxed. The best part of rooming with Burt was that he and I liked a lot of the same TV shows. We found an SVU marathon and settled in to watch. After two episodes, one about gay bashing and another about a rape and murder on a Manhattan college campus, we turned to each other and Burt said in his usual quiet manner, “Maybe we ought not watch SVU until the kids graduate…or you know ever again if they stay in New York.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I think you might be onto something with that one.” We went channel surfing and found that SyFy was running a StarGate 1 marathon. Again there was a synchronized look and mirrored expressions. “Hell yeah.” 

“Elizabeth used to love this show.” He smiled. “I think part of the reason she liked me so much was because I could MacGyver my way through fixing any car.” 

I fell asleep about half way through season four. I don’t know if Burt followed me or was actually asleep before me, but when I awoke the next morning, the TV was still on the SyFy channel and it was playing one of their silly little made for TV movies. Burt was still knocked out, so I gathered my stuff and showered. Being married to Gabbie for the previous nineteen years had me well and truly spoiled. I’ve never gone more than a day without assisted sexual gratification…even during those times when she feels that she was only able to lend a hand. Thinking of her as she had looked early the morning before she flew out; bouncing up and down, taking her pleasure for both of us; I took myself in hand and it was like reuniting with an old friend that I still remembered everything about. I cleaned the shower and washed my body. After I brushed my teeth, I decided that I didn’t need to shave again. We weren’t going to meet the house people until the next day…I would have plenty of time to shave the next morning. 

Burt was channel surfing when I came out wearing cargo shorts and a blue tee shirt that read ‘NyQuil: The stuffy, sneezy, why-the-hell-is-the-room-spinning medicine’. Burt chuckled at the statement tee, as he moved to take his turn in the bathroom. Once we were all dressed, we packed our shit up and headed down to the lobby. Kurt and Blaine were the last to arrive…but Sammy and his loves were the ones teased. Once again, they were completely voiceless. We checked out and put the bags in the cars or trucks and headed up the road to have breakfast at the Dutch Pantry Family Restaurant. It was another little local restaurant with good food, pleasant waitresses and a good vibe. Their breakfast was very old fashion, no grits, but the hash browns were good. We got on the road around eleven and the Porsche was everything you’d want or expect from such a high end car. I kind of felt bad that George and Burt didn’t get to have the experience, but the truth was that those two are uniquely able among all seven of us to be able to handle those trucks, especially in New York traffic. 

We got to the parking deck at ABC’s Manhattan studios around three. Ruth met us and hugs were given all around. When she got to Puck she threw her head back and laughed. “Bubbela, I don’t know how you managed it, but I have never seen your mother cry in public…not since your Grandfather’s funeral.”  
Puck’s eyes lit up, but the rest of us, even Sam and Mercy, were completely confused. “How did you do it? Get her to go?”

Ruth scoffed. “Please. I got her up told her to get dressed and gave her exactly what I wanted her to wear. You and your sister got your inability to function well when you first wake up from somewhere and it wasn’t me. She is a lot better than she used to be, but if you wake her up unexpectantly, she is still shockingly easy to lead around. Once she was showered and dressed she had questions, but when she realized that Gabs and Dani were dressed and ready to go with her and then we picked up Millsy on the way to the subway, I think she decided she had forgotten a meeting with Mills or something. She didn’t realize that anything was up until we pulled up outside the store. Then we almost had to carry in her into the store she was that shocked. We were able to get her to sign the paperwork, though she was still so surprised that I have no idea if she read a single thing, and they filmed everything.”

“That is so fucking awesome.” Puck crowed. “How did she react when she found out about the prepaid budget?”

Bubbie hugged Puck so tightly it wasn’t even funny. As she answered his questions, we were all quickly brought into the loop. “You did a wonderful thing for your Mother, Bubbela…when Debbie, the bridal consultant they assigned to her, told her that her son had done all of this, setting her up an appointment at Klienfield’s, prepaying for her to have the dress of her dreams - that it was a gift to her from all of her children including the newest - that’s when she cried. So anyway, she had no clue what she wanted. So she told them that this was a second marriage for both of them so she didn’t want white. She actually said she wanted something cocktail length or tea length, but after she tried on a few of those, she changed her mind. Then she went with the mermaid, I could have told her that those wouldn’t work, but I was being good. Finally she started trying on sheaths. It took the better part of the hour, but she finally found the perfect dress. It is from a London designer named David Fielden. Pale gold satin, high neck sheath gown, floor length with a natural waist. It is so perfect. And when they jacked her up, I ruined my makeup when I saw her looking so amazing and so happy in it and Gabbie, Dani, and even Millsy weren’t any better off.” Ruth wiped away a fresh tear. “I, oh Noah, I am so proud of both of you.” From the looks on the faces of my son and his Mercy, they were mighty proud of him themselves. Something told me they would show him how much once they got him alone.

She wasn’t the only one. We all were. Hugs and adulations were given by all of us. Tessa had a happy question for Bubbie, “Does that mean that Becs and Dad are gonna have a real wedding…something like Tonya and Devon?” 

Ruth nodded. “Dani and Gabbie are looking for the perfect bride’s maid’s dresses online as we speak. Mills, however, is avoiding all of them for the moment. Probably because Becah has turned her attention to trying to her to make it a double ceremony or at least join in the celebrating at the reception. Anyway, we can talk more about that when we get to the hotel. I told you as much as I can already. George, I have been told to let you know that she is good with either here in New York, or back in Lima and will leave that decision up to you. In the meantime, you and Burt can pull those trucks all the way into those two bays.” She gestured to the bays nearest the security station, but the farthest from the bay doors. “Lock them up tight. These gates will be locked down at four and reopen in the mornings at six. There are guards and everything so we should be okay.” She and Will did some kind of paperwork for the security guards while Benton started herding everyone back to their cars. He and Burt were actually hopping the train to meet Danica and Carole. The closing was scheduled for four and it had been pushed back twice already. It had to happen before the walk through so we were out of time. 

We headed to the hotel and checked in the teenagers for a night in most of their cases. Artie already had a room. He was waiting on Santana and Brittany in the lobby and they almost didn’t get out of the lobby before he started showing them how much he’d missed them. Then again as soon as we got Sam, Noah and Mercedes their room, Gabbie and I raced up to our room… we had definitely missed each other. The signatories called and had us all meet them at Strip House, a steak house near the bank. We were all very cognizant of the fact that we were getting closer to being out of time with our eldest, or in a few cases, youngest children. I wasn’t sure how the Lopezes and Pierces were handling the letting go of their only children especially since they were daughters. But at least the food and the time we got to spend with them that night were amazing. 

The night flew by and before we knew it, it was morning and we were all gathering in the lobby to head to Harlem to meet with Trudy for the walk through at the house. Everyone was dressed well, almost as if it were important to make a good impression on the new house or something. I looked at my beautiful wife. Gabbie was twenty four weeks pregnant and she looked amazing. We knew that the baby was another boy…we also knew that she had started showing earlier with this pregnancy than she had with Sam. We were golden though. Since she knew we were still being very frugal for ourselves, Danica had literally just washed her maternity clothes after she got back down to her ‘fighting weight’ and handed them to Gabs. Some of the longer dresses hadn’t even been worn. That day Gabby was wearing a long, short sleeved, barely beige maxi dress with black stripes that angled down from the center seam. Unlike Danica who had worn at least two inch heels during her entire pregnancy, my beautiful wife was wearing comfortable, slightly sporty looking, thong walking sandals, though the dress was so long all you ever really saw was her perfectly pedicured toes. 

I looked over at Danica. She had both Mara and Maea in a double stroller, their baby bags in the back under them. The twins were wearing incredibly cute little sundresses as were Stacey and Sarah. Despite all the children huddled around her; Triple S were never far from the twins if they could help it; Dani was looking well rested and very much the urban mother in a pair of leg coverings that may have been dark skinny jeans, they may have been leggings made to look like dark skinny jeans, or they may have actually just been black body paint. She topped that off with a black and shocking pink printed silk tunic with bat wing sleeves. 

If Danica was the urban mom archetype, then Analyn Anderson was the proper, old money matron, for lack of a better word. She was wearing a pair of dark gray, straight leg slacks and she paired them with a three-quarter-length-sleeve pale rose colored top that followed the contours of her form. The petite woman was wearing three inch black pumps with hella-pointy toes and had her hair pulled back in a clip at the base of her skull and her only jewelry were small pearls earrings and her wedding rings. Standing in conversation with her, Melanie Pierce looked amazingly tall. The blonde was looking very pretty in a sleeveless black maxi dress that was belted at the waist and had long slits up each side of the skirt. Her feet were shod in black very informal wedge sandals that made the dress look a lot more daytime appropriate than one would have thought at first glance. Nearby Maribel and Gwen were talking with Santana. All three of them dressed very nicely, though differently. Santana was wearing a red, form fitting dress with a very high neck, capped sleeves and a thin black belt around the waist. She had paired that with a pair of three in high black peep toe pumps. Her mother’s dress was very similar just a bold teal color and Maribel’s sleeves were three quarter length. Gwen was wearing an orange and brown sleeveless fit and flare printed dress that looked kind of old fashioned when one noted the more modern looks of the women around her. 

Rebecah, Tessa, MeDe, and Brittany were chatting with Artie, Benton and the kids. Benton and George had gotten up early and gone to the studio to check on the trucks but they were both back and scrubbed up and dressed in slacks and nice pullovers. Becs was still glowing from the day before. She may well have been the proudest mother in the state that particular week. Becah looked like she had rushed to join us from some office somewhere. Her dress was as light a gray as Analyn’s slacks were dark. It had a high, scooped, neckline and very short sleeves. The top was blousy but pulled in tight under her bosoms until it flared out a little at her hips. Like Gabbie she was more concerned with comfort than fashion, so her feet were covered in black ballet flat looking shoes. Brittany was wearing a cute boho type, floaty, mini dress and cowboy boots. Her hair was down and curly and her smile was big and bright. Tessa’s look was so her. Her dress was high in the front and lower in the back with a black tank like bodice and the skirt was multicolored bands of textured materials. She had left the Docs in Lima and was instead wearing black, wedge sandals. MeDe was most of the way across the room from her boys and something told me that the short, black, scoop neck little swirly dress she was wearing had a lot to do with it. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d have said she was going out her way to tease them. The dress by itself was ‘demurely sexy’ but when you put it over killer curves… it was a dangerous little number. She was even wearing very a pair of sexy heeled sandals. 

Once everyone was ready, we headed out, stopping for breakfast on the way to the subway. We got to the offices, and Trudy greeted us happily. Granted, she had reason to be happy. Not only had she sold our unit, but our purchase had led to her making a second sale to Ruth. “Good morning, everyone, I want to apologize for the construction delay that occurred. I know that you had hoped to have some more time in the home before your orientation began.” We all made sure that she knew we understood. George had told us when it happened how much worse it could have been. Having a contractor in the family pretty much meant that we had to understand how things could go wrong in a construction of any size let alone something of that magnitude. “Good. Let’s head over to your new home. Your unit contains numbers two through eight Convent Avenue. So it is about a block and a half away. With the young ladies and Mr. Abrams, I tried to make sure that you were kept in the first stage construction nearest the parking garage.” 

We walked over and a large Hispanic guy and a slightly smaller but by no means small mixed guy got out of a shiny black SUV. Will walked towards them and some hands shaking took place before Will brought them over and introduced them. “Everyone, this is Lester Santos and his colleague Mack Odom of Rangeman Security. They will be doing the walk through with us so that they can point out and show us how to use certain features of the security system.” The gentlemen were very professional, but Lester had that ‘MILITARY, I saw shit you never want or need to see’ look. The look in Mack’s eyes was less military, but no less troubled. And yet the aura of protectiveness was almost palpable. I don’t care how anyone else felt, I want men like that protecting our kids. 

Benton pulled the keys from his pocket. “Artie, you can have the honor of being the first to open your front door. MeDe…do you want to be the first to open the other door?” 

“Hell to the yeah.” She laughed. Mercedes and Artie both quickly grabbed the offered keys and headed with their loves and roommates to step into their future. As a father I was happy as hell, even as a few sad tears escaped to roll down my cheeks. Like a really great lady once sang; it’s never easy, letting go.

Home (Stephanie Mills)  
Sam Point of View

The walk through of the house was pretty awesome. But we did things just a little bit wrong. Most of us climbed the front stoop and entered on the main floor, then rode the elevator or took the stairs down to the basement. When we got there, Artie told us that near the external door on that level we had four locked mailboxes built into the side of the stoop. “Yes, that was a suggestion from Mr. Odom. We hadn’t considered that putting the mailboxes on the inside of the halls would mean that the external doors couldn’t be locked which would create an extra security vulnerability.” Trudy said with a smile. “We actually made that change across the board for all future builds of this kind.” I looked around the basement ‘lobby’. Pinkish beige large rectangles of tile covered the floors, but as you exited the elevator there was a tile mosaic of black, white, darker beige tiles in fan bordered with interlocked squares of four inch wide tiles. The walls had thick white baseboards and were covered to waist height in slick white satin paint with white wood squares of thin trim used to make it seem like it was actual wainscoting that was topped with a slightly ornate white chair rail. Above the chair rail the wall was painted a textured pinkish light tan. The whole wall was also topped off with Celtic knot looking white crown molding. Off either side of the lobby were two white steel exterior doors with dark Venetian bronze door handles, deadbolts and peepholes. 

Lester laughed. “I’m glad we could help.” He paused while Benton unlocked the first of the basement units. “Now, we have each of the basement apartments are set up for our lower level of home security. That means that they are fully wired in for and they can elect to have Rangeman home security or not for the rest of the package. If they choose not to have security monitoring the units will still be monitored for fire and CO2, like we have set up in the utility room. If they do elect to have a security package, they will be billed on their own separate bill.” 

“Cool.” I muttered. “Keeping everything all separated out is the best thing. But if they choose to have the security system, will you guys have to come back in and add a panel?” 

Mack shook his head. “No, the digital thermometer panel has the option to also act as a security digital display panel. Right now our wiring is in place, we’d just need to link in the software. That’s how you guys will access your services too.”

Artie smiled, “that is so cool.” Then he and Lester exchanged a whole bunch of technobabble that seemed to boil down to seeing if the basement apartments could have a more in depth protection service than the base or not and how the different software interfaced with what was in place in the main units upstairs. 

“Yo, Bossman, they want to see the rest of the place. You and your techo-spiritual brother from another mother can talk geek at each other another time.” Mack interrupted with a laugh. “I should just be happy Hombre Hector isn’t here. Cause if Artie can speak Spanish, we’d never get the two of them apart.”

“Por supuesto que hablo español, ¿Me veo como una especie de neanderthal a usted?” Artie said clearly offended. 

Santana laughed at the looks of confusion on several of the people in the room. “He said, ‘of course I speak Spanish, do I look like some kind of Neanderthal to you?’ and in the midst of the technobabble, he and Mr. Santos said that the digital thermometer meant that everything for each unit could be controlled through a cell phone, tablet or computer. For those of you who didn’t know.” 

After we all finished laughing, we continued our walk through. The floors in the open concept living, dining and kitchen area was a mid-tone oak, the baseboards stained just a hair of a shade darker. The walls a simple floor to ceiling paint job in a pretty pale grayish-green, greenish-gray color that would make a great neutral backdrop for the tenant’s stuff. The kitchen area was lined with darker oak thirty six inch tall, twenty four inch deep cabinets that were topped by an amber quartz looking counter top. The countertop was overall a deeper beigey-amber color with veins of lighter and darker grays and even a color that seemed to almost mirror the walls. Kurt had brightened everything up by having the top cabinets a pale, super white gray. They clearly matched the bottom cabinets; they were just a different color. The pulls on the top cabinets were darker brushed nickel, and the ones on the bottom ones were a bright chrome. The chrome was mirrored in the stainless steel of the sink, faucet, sprayer and appliances. Off the kitchen there was a small laundry room with enough extra shelving that some of it could double as some non-perishable food storage.

We walked through the good sized public areas and then Trudy showed us the four piece bathroom the tenants would share. The bathroom flooring was a deep gray stone twelve inch square tile, the walls were a much lighter shade of gray and the tiles were four inch by four inch squares, laid as diamonds rather than the more usual pattern. The tiles are capped about five feet from the floor with a line of light gray subway tiles above which is mold proof, water and temperature resistant semi-gloss a shade or two lighter than the subway tiles. The room was lit with a large chrome and opalescent white fixture in the center of the ceiling. Along the wall to the left of the door, was the sink on a small vanity cabinet and gray and black streaked ‘marble’ counter top. Next to that stood a four drawer cabinet that extended the counter space about eighteen inches. Above both was a large square mirror framed in a dark finish wood that matched the expresso finishes of the cabinets below it. The mirror was well lit with a four lamp vanity light that matched the ceiling fixture and highlighted the brushed nickel of the sink’s fixtures. Beyond the sink and vanity, was the toilet. It was super white as was square trough sink that sat on top of the counter top rather than being mounted in the stone. 

“As Mr. Hummel requested, the toilets are all dual flush toilets, which will save the tenants money on their water bills and help to decrease the overall water usage of all the residents.” Trudy said with a winning smile. “The shower tub combo is actually recessed into the facing wall. We went with the seventy five by sixty by thirty two inch, fiberglass liner system. It will make for easier cleaning and easy repair or replacement. As you can see the diamond patterns of the walls are mirrored in the pattern of the shower ‘walls’.” That was really pretty. “Now your tenants will have to provide their own shower curtain rod in addition to the curtain itself, but you can see that Mr. Hummel’s choices for the shower fixtures are the same beautiful brushed nickel as the rest of the fixtures.” 

“Well grab some rods for the apartments before we head back to Lima,” Burt said thoughtfully. “That way Kurt can make sure that they’ll look good and match the fixtures, less likely the tenants will take them with them when they move.” 

Burt was a smart man, and so was George. “I can affix them with a waterproof epoxy glue to make sure that they can’t even try.”

With that we moved into the first of the equal sized, twelve by eleven foot bedrooms. There wasn’t much to see, without any furniture there were just ‘pale taupe’ painted walls, white trimmed pivot closet doors, white trimmed long, thin windows, and some beige medium pile carpet. The other room looked just like it. They both even had the same rubbed bronze semi flush ceiling light with its three lights in their light amber opaque glass shade thingies. “Now we will come in right before the end of July next year to check for and correct any issues that arise as the house ‘settles’ for lack of a better word. That will include both of these apartments, so you’ll want to make sure that entrance to the units for repairs and maintenance is included in the leases.” Trudy advised. 

We nodded, finished that unit and then did a walk-through of the other, almost identical unit. There were only slight differences. Different light fixtures and paint colors, the kitchen cabinet colors switched, white bottom cabinets and cherry upper ones, darker countertops to make the transition look a lot better than it sounded. The same desert storm, glass tile back splash that tied everything together despite the slight differences. After locking the basement apartments and that floor’s main entrance back up, we went back up to the first floor. The lobby on the first floor was very similar to the other, just the walls were different, where the bottom floor had the peachy tan and white walls the main lobby was a classic taupe above the chair rail and dark taupish brown under, though it still had the wide white baseboards and thin trim squares. 

Again Benton pulled out more keys. “Alright…MeDe, you and Artie already got to open one set of doors for the first time. So, I’ll give these to Santana and Brittany and Sam and Noah.” He passed me and Noah a set of keys. “Just like down stairs the deadbolt and the handle locks have different keys. Most lock sets now in days have the same key for both; the theory is that this difference will slow down any thieves. The two sets of main door keys are also different from apartment entrance keys and the locks reengage immediately. Another level of security. Right now we just have one set of keys for each door. When we go to get the shower rods, we’ll have copies made.”

With a smirk at Puck, I unlocked the deadbolt and handed him the keys to open the door handle. Santana and Britts had done something similar. The group split down residency lines, Santana, Brittany and Artie’s families went into their home, while the Jones, Evans, Puckerman-Altmans, Hummel-Hudsons, and Andersons walked into ours. We entered to see the gorgeous dark walnut, bamboo floors with the matching, ornate, baseboards. The stairs leading to the second floor were situated off to the left. “The wall color below the cherry chair rail is a Behr color called Sesame Crunch. Above the rail is Benjamin Moore’s Rich Cream.” Kurt told us about the light peachy cream and the deeper brown with just a touch of red to it on the walls. “We have recessed lighting throughout the home. In this room that is augmented by the aged bronze, three lights, chandelier for above the dining room table. The living and dining room are completely open concept, but the kitchen is somewhat closed off. We walked through the archway separating the two rooms. 

The flooring was continued in the kitchen, and seemed to meld into the slightly darker cherry wood cabinets. The doors and drawers all had simple but elegant shiny chrome, long, rectangular pulls. The countertops were smoky gray quartz with hints of peach, lavender, silver and white throughout. The layout was an L shaped design with both upper and lower cabinets with the same chrome pulls. The sink was under mounted. It had a very wide, stainless steel double basin, polished chrome pull down faucet and knobs. There was a large center island that kept you from walking straight through from the front rooms to the back of the house. With three chrome and clear glass pendant lights above it, the island seemed to be waiting on the barstools we’d found to serve as our breakfast seats. The stainless steel appliances were shiny and new. The fridge had double French doors with water and ice in the door. When you opened the top doors you realized that the thing had doors inside the doors and that was really cool. The freezer was on the bottom and was more like a drawer than I was used to. There was a six burner stove with a traditional oven one set of cabinets over from the fridge. Above it was a stainless steel built in microwave and in the gray glass black splash there was a chrome pot filler spigot too. I noticed that on one side of the sink cabinet was a dishwasher and on the other was something I was pretty sure was a trash compactor. They seemed to have been matched to the rest of the appliances. 

The right wall was about four feet less deep than it seemed from the outside, I noticed the door and realized that that was because the pantry was over there. It had some gorgeous built in shelving inside the barn sliding, four part, rich cherry stained doors and I smiled. This was Mercy’s dream kitchen, almost. When I walked around the island to head into the family room I had to toss the word almost. There in the island facing the cabinet between the fridge and the stove was a convection oven perfect for baking. It really was her dream kitchen. With the built in beverage center living one cabinet down, I realized that it was pretty much mine too. 

The family room was really nice. The room was darker than the front of the house, more intimate. Kurt and Mercy had selected cherry wood floors, but the boards were wider and were laid in a less uniform pattern. The baseboards and chair rail matched the floors, and between the two were vertical strips of burgundy and slightly lighter burgundy paint. Above the chair rail was a pretty creamy pinkish cream color and then a cherry crown molding. The room was about sixteen by eighteen and off to the left there was wall with two evenly spaced wooden interior doors. The first went to the small powder room. The second to a good sized study with a set of built in bookshelves. Lester showed us how to open it from our side while Trudy did the same on the other. There was a small panic room that would fit the eight of us as long as no one took a very deep breath with a panel that would allow us to communicate with Rangeman from inside. We closed the wall back up and made our way up to the second floor.

The flooring was lighter cherry than the floors on the first floor, but the stairs made it seem to blend seamlessly. The walls were simply painted with one color Kurt called Powder Sand. “Now, we did make one change from the original layout. Rather than the workout room being the entire width of the house and the guest bathroom being on the first floor, we created an eight by ten guest bathroom on the second floor and shortened the home gym.” Kurt told us as he showed us a bathroom that had the same flooring, walls, cabinets and fixtures as the powder room just adding a standing shower stall. “I was also able to find a gorgeous claw foot tub so that it would be a little nicer in here than down in the basement apartments.” 

“It is beautiful Kurt.” Carole said with a proud smile. “We’ll have to get some special towels just for the guest bath.” 

Kurt brightened even more under the praise. He led us to the next room, the home gym. It was a great room, long and narrow. The floors and ceiling were both cherry wood, the same color as the hall for the floor and a slightly lighter shade laminate or something on the ceiling. There were some nice large windows that let in lots of natural light. But the room still had plenty of room and a wall of white built-in cabinets that left room for a TV too. “If you ever decide to sell, this room would be easy to restage as a home theater or just a media room.” Mills said with a big grin. We looked at the guest room next. The walls and flooring was continued again in the guest room like it had been in the hall and gym. Every room and the hall had recessed lights but the guest room had two double light sconces on the wall set where I’m guessing Kurt planned for the nightstands to be. The laundry and linen closet both had large, square, beige tiles on the floors and darker beige thin, long tiles on the wall up to about five feet up. Above them the walls were painted the same color as a good cappuccino. In the laundry room there were white cabinets along the back wall and the hookups for the washer and dryer were already in place. George checked them over and was quite pleased. The linen closet had shelving in place that started about three feet from the floor. George frowned. “When we’re out remind me to get one of those organizer racks for this closet and the pantry. I’d hate to see broom and mop handles scratch up the tile and paint.” 

Blaine made a note on his iPad, which I hadn’t even noticed he had out, and Kurt let us take a peek at his and Blaine’s suite. The colors and everything were perfect for them, teal and ‘waterscape’ paint, hella cool plaid accent wall, ornate, dove gray, crown molding. It was them all over. We checked out the bathroom and it was all cool almond and dark expresso browns with bronze accents and warm beige tiles. They had a big shower and a whirlpool soaker tub in addition to their double sink vanity and water closet. “All the personal bathrooms have in floor heating…no cold toe shock in the morning.” Mercedes said happily as we looked around the bathroom. We came out of their space itching to see our own. So up the stairs we went. 

The entrance to the master suite opened into me and Puck’s ‘Man Cave’ with its light Brazilian Cherry floors and simple mocha wall paint. Our woman knew us well. The colors were perfect for us, and yet blended well when you walked down the little hallway and into our huge bedroom. The floors were the same but the walls, other than the accent wall was a simple paint in a color just a shade or so lighter than the mocha in the front room. In the center of tray ceiling there was a ceiling fan with the big palm leaf looking blades with a pretty rubbed bronze and opaque light fixture on it. There were also oil rubbed bronze swing arm lamps, two of them, attached into the accent wall about where the nightstands would go. I walked over to one of the two closets and opened them. The walls inside were still a simple paint, but the color was a much lighter brown, almost a bright cream. Waiting on our boxes and bags, were cedar shelves with hanger bars. There was on either side of the center section were shelves with protection to house our shoes, drawers for…I guess…our ties and accessories and a tall section for our suits. The center section was shelves at the top and four hanger sections that would be the right size for shirts and pants. On the inside of each of the doors were hooks that would serve well for baseball caps or Puck’s fedoras that he seemed to collect but never actually wear. The closet was deep and there was more than enough room for Puck and my clothes, especially since we’d also have our dressers and such. 

I was going to close the door when Puck stopped me. “Go check out Sexy Mama’s closet. She might actually have enough room for almost all of her shoes.”

“Yeah, well, lookin’ at our closet we might well have to buy more shoes.” I left him to look at our closet and went over to nuzzle Mercy’s sexy little neck while she was gazing at her own. Her closet had ten shoe shelves just for her. Plus regular shelves that looked like they might have enough room for her hats. There were fewer drawers and six sections that would hold her clothes. On the inside of her door were hooks like ours, but several more of them. We’d use ours for baseball caps; Mercedes would probably use hers for junk jewelry or her collection of shoelaces or something. I noticed that all the hardware in both closets matched the metal part of the swing lamps on the wall in the ceiling fixture.

Closing her closet, we headed into the bathroom and I really wanted everyone else to leave so I could take my loves into that tub. The floors were tumbled, silver, travertine tiles of a multitude of different sized squares and rectangles. They came up onto the steps of the surround of the whirlpool three seater jetted tub and up the side of the five sided shower stall. Most of the walls were tiled with very light blue ceramic tiles, but the accent wall behind the tub and the walls inside the shower were tiled in some really cool, dove gray embossed tiles. Rather than plain clear glass for the shower enclosure, the glass was mostly frosted leaving long sworls of clear glass which gave what should have been a plain shower enclosure texture and, I guess, whimsy. The triple cabinets and storage vanity area were made of mahogany with a light gray quartz countertop. Brightening the gray up, Mercy had chosen a blue glass mosaic backsplash. It seemed to have gray and silver threaded through the blue and really tied the room together. The sinks were undermounted and were stainless steel square shaped sinks with deeper u-shaped basins. The faucets came out from the backsplash and seemed way futuristic to me. Above the tile line which seemed to stop right around the same height of Mercy’s shoulder in those sexy ass sandals she was wearing, the walls were painted in a mold resistant, semi-gloss super light gray paint. We even had a water closet. The toilet and bidet…before I’d found my heart’s home in Mercy and Puck I’d have never ever thought I would use a bidet, but now I could see why Mercy and Kurt both believed they were necessary for us… were super white as was the inside of the whirlpool tub. The shower and bathtub faucets and showerheads were all stainless steel and chrome.

We made sure that everything was exactly what Kurt and Mercy and the moms had chosen and then after an hour long lesson in our security system…how to use it, how to down load the app that allowed us to control it from our mobile devises, and all its different features, Mack and Lester gave each of us a special key chain. “Since working on your job has helped us develop a new line of services that all projections say will be very, very lucrative, Ranger has authorized me to off you a bonus as part of your home security package. We’d like to upgrade you to limited personal protection. Those key chains are actually panic buttons. If you trigger them, a signal pings at Rangeman that will allow us to find you as long as you can keep the key chain on you.” I turned the key chain over in my hand. It looked like a normal little flashlight keychain, except I noticed that it seemed to be heavier than a regular one and it had a green and a red button. “The green button controls the flashlight…the red acts as your panic button. Beautiful’s thought process on it was that if you’re attacked, the assailant would probably press the red button thinking that it would turn off the light. That way even if you don’t get a chance to press it, hopefully, we’ll still get notice that you need assistance.”

“That is wonderful.” Carole said happily. She really looked like a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She blushed a little. “I worry…Kurt has been through so much bullying and gay bashing back home, I was worried what he might face here.” She admitted. 

“Dani has been reading more and more about the rape culture on Ivy League campuses and how to protect against becoming a victim.” Benton said with a little nod. “We’re all worried.”  
Maribel cosigned the thought. “I wanted to have Santana take Krav Maga over the summer, but I was worried that knowing that many ways to kill someone would get her in trouble.”  
Santana smirked. “Don’t worry Mami, I know more than enough without it.” 

Lester and Mack smiled like they thought she was cute. The rest of us knew her better than they did; we just silently agreed. They finished showing us the functions of the flashlight, including letting us know that once the panic button was engaged, it wouldn’t be shut off until we’d spoke to a Rangeman and given them the correct code word, which for each of us was our mother’s maiden name. But once that code word was utilized, they would assign us another. The Rangeman Duo got back into their shiny black SUV and left with a wave. We locked the house back up and followed Trudy back to the office. She told us, in confidence, that the developer had been so impressed with the efficiency Rangeman’s installers had displayed, they were making Rangeman the preferred security firm not only for this development, but for all the ones they had in any city Rangeman had offices. Considering that Rangeman had offices in Boston, New York, New Jersey, Atlanta and Miami…that could definitely prove lucrative.

Back at the developer’s office next to the model home, some more papers were signed to signify that we had no problems with the condition of the house upon ‘delivery’. And we were assigned our four parking spots and given another bunch of things to read about our new community. We said goodbye to Trudy and Mills, who was staying behind to oversee the official appraisal walkthrough with someone from the Tax Assessor’s office, and walked the eight blocks to Columbia’s campus. The entire big ass group of us had lunch near the campus and the parents decided that it was a great time to go and establish each of us a flex dining account so that we’d be able to eat on campus during the day. Then we headed to the Campus police station and Blaine, Mercy, Puck and I were able to get our school IDs made ahead of the crowd. We did a few more campus based errands then repeated the process at NYU and NYADA, before returning to the hotel. 

When we all got back to the hotel, I don’t know about the parents, or even the younger kids, but we eight, nine if you count Finn, were all really wired. So we all changed and decided to go sight-seeing. We decided to stick together even if Mercy, Kurt and Santana seemed to think that window shopping counted as sight-seeing. Brittany wanted to take the ferry over to the Statue of Liberty. Britts is like Stacey, she is pretty much going to get what she wants. Besides, Lord Tubbington had foreseen that we’d be finished by that afternoon, so she had already gotten us tickets and everything. When we got there, I had to say that I was so happy Artie was with us, because I didn’t feel like climbing all those stairs and Puck had almost succeeded in punking me into doing it. Fortunately for me, Santana took offense and threatened to cut him if he didn’t shut up talking about doing something Artie would love to be able to do. 

Once we saw the information center at the base of the Statue, Finn suggested we go to Coney Island and have a real Coney Island hot dog…how could we not? Puck led the adventure since he definitely had the most experience getting around the city on the trains. I have to say there is just something that cannot be duplicated about a Nathan’s hot dog anywhere else. I mean, I’d had Nathan’s hot dogs before, but that was the very best hot dog ever. I think it was even better than Pinks. So totally worth the trip. Of course, we couldn’t go all the way out there, eat one hotdog and head back, so we goofed around on the boardwalk for a while. We made it back just in time to get the text that everyone, even Neil and Francesca, were meeting up at Guy’s American Kitchen and Bar for a kind of late dinner. It was way easy to figure out that the dads picked the restaurant. The food was amazing. The conversation was cool. Once everyone was served, Mills took control of the discussion. 

“Alright, the assessment of the property was full of good news… only a little bit of sort of bad.” She smiled all around the table. “Downstairs, both apartments assessed at about forty seven hundred dollars, which breaks down to two thousand three hundred and fifty per bedroom…or a little under four dollars per square foot. Maximum occupancy for them is four people per unit. I am telling you right now that those are amazingly high for Harlem…if Danica, Gabby, Kurt and Carole hadn’t done such a great job with the layout and everything, no way would we be able to ask that much, even with the proximity to Morningside Heights. That will bring the families’ responsibility way down.” She said happily. “Now the next good news actually kind of creates the bad. The property was assessed at five point one million and some change. That is just about twice what you’re actually paying for it. Which is again hugely awesome for the most part. Unfortunately, that means that your property taxes for next year will be around six hundred and seventy-one thousand. Good news is the rate is starting to go down. It is currently a little above thirteen percent, next year it should be about twelve point eight percent.” She finished up her report. 

Neil grinned. “So what you’re saying is that they doubled their investment, in just the amount of time it took to build the place.” Mills nodded. “Aunt Ruth, you’re probably going to do the same?”   
Bubbie smiled. “Between George knowing the best building materials and Kurt having an amazing sense of what fixtures will showcase well…yes.” 

“Alright, soon to be cousin in law and roommate of younger cousin…will you two help me make the right decisions? Now that the market is rebounding, I think it’s time I get my toes wet in the real estate market.” He turned to Francesca. “Will you help me find the best renters?” She threw her arms around his neck like he had said ‘will you marry me’ instead. George and Kurt both agreed too. “Kurt, how much will you charge me?” 

Kurt’s face flamed at the thought of being not just in the spotlight in this instance but being lauded for something that probably would have gotten his ass kicked back home. “Well, since you’re Noah’s cousin, I’ll give you the family discount. You attend any NYADA show I’m in and boost me up on the comment cards and buy me a Nordstrom gift card, I’ll leave the amount up to you…I say that hoping that you aren’t as much of a cheapskate as Puck…and we’ll call it even.” 

“Kid, no one is as cheap as my little cousin.” Neil defended. “I’ll make an appointment with that Trudy woman this week, that way you can pick out my fixtures before your classes start.”   
“I will endeavor to make you as much money as humanly possible.” Kurt assured him. “I bet with a few upgrades in the bathrooms and making the second floor three larger bedrooms and two traditional baths, we could see significant increase in the marketability.” 

I was still staggering under the amounts of money they were talking about. Then the fact that Neil and Kurt were talking about even more… I was just dumbstruck. Melanie Pierce asked a question that turned things back to the present. “So we’re facing an increased tax liability, but at the same time we’re going to make more off the rental units than we thought, so doesn’t that mean if we keep to the current amounts were putting into the account each month we should be able to bank a significant portion of the property taxes a head of time. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m good with that.” 

The rest of the adults agreed. It was still a hell of a lot of money, of debt, to me, but since they all seemed happy with the discussion I just kept my mouth shut. Actually I kept it busy with the amazingly delicious, ridiculously crispy shrimp po’boy I’d ordered. By the time the table was cleared for the final time, we were all too full to take a deep breath. Even Finn was super full and he was the poster boy for the ‘Bottomless Pit Growing Teenage Boy’. It was getting pretty late so we had to let walking to a slightly further away subway entrance suffice as our ‘working off dinner’ exercise. We moved quickly and pretty much amassed around Moma Dani, the kids and Mom as the center of our group. We were getting better about behaving normally in a city that big, but we were still pretty wary. I mean, the simple truth was that we were still ‘small town’ people in New York City, a city that, thanks to movies and television, we mentally equated with crime and bad salsa.

When we got to our hotel room, we were so slap down tired; I think we were asleep before our heads hit the pillow. Despite the fact that we’d definitely not had the wherewithal to arrange for a wakeup call, the phone rang at just after six the next morning. We grumbled as we headed to the shower, but we got up and made our way into the nice bathroom none the less. Our shower was short and sweet, quick hand and kiss induced orgasms all around, because the day was going to be way too long not to start it off right, quick cleansing wash with the hotel’s slightly too rough washcloths, then we were out and running. While Mercy lotioned and used the sink area, Puck and I packed the room back up. We weren’t sure if the plan was for us to check out and stay at the house that day or the next. I pulled out the clothes Mercy had picked for moving day, a pair of her comfiest purple yoga pants…they were really sexy too, fitting more like leggings until under her calves where they belled out a little bit…she had also grabbed one of Puck’s old Lakers jerseys. She was already wearing one of her better comfort bras and panties. I grabbed her a pair of ankle socks and found her the tennis shoes she had driven up in. Moving in the wedge flip flops she had out to wear was just asking for trouble. Mercy gave me kiss in thanks and started getting dressed. I don’t even know if she realized that I had vetoed her footwear choice. Then again, maybe those were just out and not actually a choice. 

I headed to the sink and did the rest of my absolutions and threw on a faded Darth Maul tee shirt and some cargo shorts, socks and tennis shoes. Puck finished up in the bathroom wrapped our toothbrushes and tooth paste in one of the hand towels and tossed it into Mercy’s still open toiletry bag. We sat everything in the closet so we could hastily grab them up if we needed to come back up and get them. By seven we were in the lobby as per the itinerary the moms had sent to all our phones. Nosh Café almost seemed to be getting used to us, that or the moms had preordered their grab and go breakfasts for all thirty one of us. Though, maybe Mara and Maea don’t count yet when it comes to food. Yeah they are sitting up like champs and holding their own bottles, but they are barely numming grown up food to death. 

“Okay, since we’ll be moving all day, I don’t think you guys are going to feel like setting the house up and unpacking today.” Mr. Anderson said with a smile. “So we have you scheduled to check out tomorrow. That being said, we’re taking the subway up rather than moving the cars. George and Burt texted about ten minutes, they are already at the house. The movers are scheduled to meet us there at eight. We don’t want to hold them up.” Before he said that I hadn’t noticed that my dad, George, Benton and Burt weren’t among us. Then again even with four missing, we’re still a crowd all by ourselves. 

“Okay, real quick so we can head out. We have a total of six moving men for six hours. Half the movers will meet us at the house and get started unloading, the other half are meeting Saul, Mills and Bubbie Ruth at the storage unit that has all the stuff that was delivered to Saul and Ruth. Those three will oversee the loading of the Moving Man, Inc. truck and then they’ll be over. I want everyone to thank them huge amounts. They didn’t have to take a day off to help. We also need to think of something nice to do for Neil. Per some deal he made with Noah, he’s paying for one team of movers.” Momma said loudly enough to be heard, but not obnoxiously so. “So let’s get our butts in gear…move out.” 

I saw a few of the patrons giggling at her, but I wasn’t stupid enough to stay there gawking after Momma told me to get a move on. Even though we were taking the subway during rush hour, we still made it to our new home with twenty minutes before the movers were supposed to show up. Hell Bent had unlocked everything and the doors were all propped open for easy unloading. Dad and George decided that we could get a start unloading the smaller truck. Artie let himself in and situated himself in the main floor lobby with his iPad. He was going to direct traffic. We did the luggage first, taking the appropriate set or boxes to the right room and putting them all in the correct closet. It was actually really easy to do the luggage sets. We knew each other well enough that just looking at the outside of the luggage set told us exactly who it belonged to. The purple and zebra print sets; Blaine grabbed one piece of each set and headed directly to our master. I knew looking at it that the hard side rainbow set belonged to Brittany. The two huge Cheerio gym bags had to belong to Santana and Britts. Dr. Lopez took up a few pieces of Santana’s garnet red set. Finn and Kurt had carried Kurt’s set up. Soon we were down to the boxes, and I really relied on Artie for those. I just made sure that I kept the writing facing forward and he’d call out the name and check something off on his iPad. Right around the time we got the rest of the clothing and shoes out of the way in their particular closets the first set of men from the Moving Man arrived. 

While we were unloading them, Moma Dani and Momma had taken the kids and gone for a walk. They’d stopped at the corner bodega and grabbed a bunch of water and snacks. So we moved over to the side and got out of the movers way. Mr. Kilby, the foreman, introduced us to his crew, Alain, Fernando, and Romero then asked a few questions and looked over the inside of the big truck. He turned to his men, “these good people have done an incredible job packing these trucks. That makes our job a lot easier. The third floor furniture is the last in the truck, so we can work from the top floor down. Now the elevator is usable for number four, but its stairs only in number two. They already have a man in the lobby to help us with which furnishings go in which apartment.” He turned back to the dads. “Is there someone you can station on each floor to tell us which room what needs to go in?” 

“Man, do you not see all these people?” Puck joked, “We could put a person in each and every room in this place if that would help.”

Becah smacked him upside the head and asked Kurt and Tessa to handle the respective second floors. “Floorplans, room layouts, as well as a slightly anal retentive list of everything that was in our storage unit back home, categorized by which house, which floor and which room every stick of furniture and every box of décor and where they should go, is in the itinerary email as an attachment.”

I pulled out my phone and laughed as Tessa grumbled, “One of you-don’t know which one-but one of you had entirely too much time on your hands this summer. That or you need serious psychological counseling. This list is entirely too freaking detailed.” She shouted the last sentence from the lobby as she headed to the second floor of the LAP unit. 

“I’ll have you know…” Kurt made to follow her.

I couldn’t hold back my laughter. “You know, Kurt, there is a saying in the south. ‘Hit dog will holler.’ If you hadn’t said anything Tessa would have gone on thinking that it was one of the moms that was super anal."

He turned back to roll his eyes. “That may well be true Sam, but it was also true that it didn’t take me more than an hour to create that list and it was very much necessary to be able to complete the room by room layout.” He told us all as he headed to his post accompanied by his best friend who just happened to be my best girl. Mercy dropped him on his floor and headed up to our floor. Blaine followed them in and took up his station on the first floor. On the other side of the house, Santana and Brittany took their master suite and Mrs. Lopez handled the main living areas. 

Efficiency was pretty much the word of the day. The first set of moving men arrived at ten minutes after nine. They were lifting and carrying by nine fifteen. The second set pulled up in one of their company’s truck at just before ten thirty. By eighteen minutes after noon, every one of the three trucks was completely empty. Moma Dani passed out waters and juices while they took a ten minute break. Then they busted out their tools, George and Burt grabbed their tool boxes out of the cabs of the UHauls and it was back to work. The eight movers, George, Burt, Dad, Benton and Mr. Pierce went to work on putting all the furniture and exercise equipment and everything together. Mr. Abrams, Puck, Finn, Blaine and I were helpers, helping unbox stuff and get it all set up and organized so that the assembly went smoothly and quickly. As soon as entertainment centers were together and in place, Artie went through and with help from Santana, Tessa, Brittany, Triple S, Kurt, Mr. Anderson and Dr. Lopez he got his gamer den, Brittany’s dance studio, the fitness room, the studies, living rooms and family rooms all hooked up technology wise. Dr. Lopez, by tactic agreement did more holding of cords and passing of the few tools Artie needed than anything else. We couldn’t really risk a surgeon’s hands by having him doing any heavy lifting or hammer swinging. We’d have been just as careful with Moma Dani’s hands too, if we had let any of the moms lift anything heavier than some of the kitchen stuff…Momma wasn’t allowed to do more than open some boxes. Still every one chipped in where they could and the movers were able to leave by their three o’clock quittin’ time. 

Benton had me join them as he walked them out and saw to their payment with a money order from him and another from Neil. He also gave them a fairly substantial tip. They all seemed really happy on their way out and asked that if we were pleased with the job they had done and their service that we give a Yelp review for them. Benton turned to me, “you okay, Sam?” 

“Yes sir.” I said confused. “Why?

“You look like there is something ruminating in the back of your mind…have since dinner last night. I’m guessing that the numbers Mills was throwing around last night kind of threw you for a loop.” 

I nodded. “It’s just that Puck and Mercy and I were hoping that when we finish school and really start in the industry we’d try to take on the burden of this house and pay you guys back for all this help. But I don’t see how we’ll ever be able to do that…it all just cost so much. What if we never make it big enough to make that kind of money? And what happens if the economy goes pear shaped again? If Momma and Dad lose their jobs again, or want to get a house of their own or something?”

“Well, your mom and dad and Dani and I have an agreement. They are free to stay with us until after you graduate college. Actually according to Dani, she will hurt both of them if they try to leave before then. Not to mention that I think Stevie and Stacey are not going to be willing to leave the twins for a while. Sometimes I get the feeling that Stacey thinks we had Mara and Maea just for her.” We shared a smile. That statement did have quite a bit of truth to it. “So even if things do go bad again, the four of us will work together to make sure that everything is taken care of. At this point, Sam, if your mom loses her job again, we’ll just hire her as a Mara and Maea’s nanny. Who would make a better caregiver than someone who loves them as much as we do and has spent time as a teacher? There will never be a time when Steve and Stacey have to go back to living in that motel; you have my word on that, Sam.”

I’m man enough that I can admit, that I got all choked up. My biggest fear at that point in my life was the fear that my parents would lose everything again and need me to go back to work and I’d be half a country away. That Stacey would get exposed to things no little girl should see, or worse. That Stevie would end up falling in with some of the rough assholes that were often around the motel. It was even worse now that Momma was pregnant again. No way could she take some of the same menial jobs she had done while she was WAY underemployed last time. “Thank you.” I finally managed to push out past the lump in my throat. 

Benton clapped me on the back, acknowledging my gratitude. “Sam, do you know why I like you…why I’m okay with you and my little girl?” I shook my head. He’d made a few comments about how he thought that I loved her almost as much as he did…but I don’t think he every explained exactly what he meant. “Dani’s dad told me that when Arielle was born, he created a list of all the things he wanted in a son in law. He came up with like thirty things…things like being ambitious, or conscientious, or discreet. He said that by the time Dani was getting ready to start thinking about boys he had realized that he was never gonna find all those things in one person…so he narrowed it down to an even dozen.   
He ended up with courageous, funny, honest, imaginative, industrious, level-headed, loyal, open-minded, patient, persistent, resourceful, sincere…he said that he figured that he could live with at least a guy who had those twelve…but then Dani brought me home and while I didn’t have the fully thirty, he said that I had all of the twelve and the most important of the other eighteen. I will say to you that he never did tell me what all of those other eighteen were or exactly which ones I had…but I think I can guess, and Sam, I see each and every one of those in you…Noah has a lot of them. I’m willing to give him eleven of twelve and twenty-seven of thirty. He really is a damn fine young man, but you Sam…you and your ability to put every person you love above yourself, the way you love with your whole heart…you have probably all thirty, not just the twelve. Even if you looked like the north side of a south bound buffalo, you’d still be the best man I could ever want for Mercy.” 

I know I was blushing and smiling and almost giggling. To hear a man I admired so very much, a man who had every reason to hate…I was having marital relations with his daughter on an almost daily basis even though we weren’t technically married…tell me that he respected and admired me, it was a lot to take in but it was a balm to my soul. There was nothing else I could say so I threw my arms around him in a quick hug and headed back into the house. We dragged all the plastic down to the smaller truck and all the boxes that the furniture had come in or that had been unpacked into the big truck. George and Burt would drop our recycling off at a nearby center and then turn the trucks in before returning to the hotel. After they left, we all took a walk through our own houses. Our homes. Mercy had rolled out the huge charcoal and lavender rug that was wide enough to rest under the entire massive king bed and the two four drawer nightstands on either side before the movers finished putting the bed together, so we wouldn’t have to fight to get it in place later. Alain and Romero had set up the bed and the nightstands perfectly and put our box springs and mattress in place. Looking around the room, really the curtains and stuff needed to go up, the bed needed to be made, but the room looked almost ready for us. 

The rest of the house was the same, the rugs that were to be placed under furniture were in place the curtain rods, hardware and blinds were up, but the curtains themselves were still boxed up. The house needed to be ‘decorated’ but if we weren’t living with Mercy and Kurt, Blaine, Puck and I would probably leave it just like that for quite some time. We finished installing the TVs on the second and third floors of our side and headed back to the hotel. Showers for everyone and then we headed out for a late lunch. Then the parents decided that since several of them had to leave either Friday or Monday, rest was for the weak. Momma took Triple S and the twins back to the hotel while the rest of us were dragged to hell on earth, or early evening shopping in New York City using the subway as our primary mode of transportation. 

Thank God the parents decided to take a divide and conquer approach to getting everything purchased. The Dads, Puck, Blaine and I hit a Target and Home Depot and Walmart. We got brooms and mops and cleaning supplies, we got tools to keep in the house for the fixes that Kurt, Puck and I could handle ourselves and four of the broom handle organizers George wanted. We got a bunch of other stuff I couldn’t remember if I tried. But we didn’t have to bother with things like towels and extra sheets or whatever it is the women were getting at Macys. Puck and I decided to look at the bikes. They would be a great way to get around…the Tahoe was Mercy’s and she exactly wasn’t one for bike riding for transportation…fun, yeah, fitness, possibly…transportation, nope. Blaine found us and thought they would be a good idea too. We decided to wait on them until we learned the city better. 

It was pretty late by the time we got back to the hotel room. There was an ass load of red bags with those big white stars on them. Mercy was knocked out in the bed, so deep asleep that her mouth was open. She must have been tired, because she had only managed to get out of her shoes, shirt and bra. “Sexy Mama is way too beautiful when she even looks hot like that.” Puck said as he started undressing. “Is it weird that whenever is watch her sleeping all hard with her mouth open, I kind of want to dip my balls in her mouth?”

I chuckled. “For you, no…for normal people…probably.” I went over and we managed to get Mercy out of her jeggings without waking her up. Then Puck and I sucked each other off and climbed into bed. The next morning didn’t start quite as early but we were back to the house by nine thirty. We’d loaded everything into the Tahoe and the Cayenne…they were so full there was literally just room for the drivers, Benton and Dr. Lopez. The rest of us road the train. We got there first. The day was spent unpacking and decorating. Then at ten thirty, a Lowes’ truck showed up and both of the main units had a washer and dryer. Bedding was washed, dried and put on the beds. Curtains were hung and steamed. Pillows were perfectly placed. George went down to the apartments and installed these cool dual rod shower curtain rods. Mills had appointments to show them starting the following Monday. 

Burt, Carole and Finn had to lead out around five. Thankfully they had checked out of the hotel that morning and brought their bags with them to the house. Kurt and Blaine rode to the airport with them while the rest of us did the grocery shopping. Even with a fully, and I mean fully…someone had gotten a spice rack with twenty one slots and the spices to fill them all…yeah, fully stocked kitchen, no one felt like cooking. We walked the eight or so blocks up into Harlem to Amy Ruth’s Soul Food Restaurant. The food was like going back to Tennessee. It was so good, I was kind of scared that Puck was going to try to live there. Since there was a subway station right neat the restaurant, the parents went on back to the hotel, and the six of us made our way back to our house. 

It was kind of strange going ‘home’ to a house without our parents or any of our siblings. But by the time we finished christening our bed, all three of the zebra print chairs, the arm chairs in the ‘man cave’ and the whirlpool tub, it was definitely home.


	11. Summer's End (Foo Fighter)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First half of Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Betas rock the casaba. Kaybee 80 & Illiandyanndra You two are the betas all others look up to in my mind.

CHAPTER 11  
Summer’s End (Foo Fighters)  
Finn Point of View

I knew that technically Kurt and I had only been brothers for a couple of years when it was time for the whole ‘college’ thing…but it still felt really, really weird going home and leaving him behind in New York. No late night lady chats, no weird foods that actually tasted a lot better than the name made it sound, no one fussing at me for leaving ‘the ocean liners you call shoes’ in the living room rather than taking them down to my room. Thank God it was only for two nights. Even with Mom and Burt, I was starting to get lonely.

Aside from all the mixed feelings about leaving home, I was really excited to go to school. Not only were Lauren and I going to the same school -keeping us from having to deal with there being an hour and a half between us- but since we were both student athletes, we’d been assigned to live in the same dorm. The dorm was a fourteen floor building, one of the newest dorms on the whole campus. The first seven floors were dedicated to the male athletes. Then eight through fourteen were for the girls. The best thing of all was that Lauren had gotten so much money in scholarships and everything that she had used some of her surplus to have a single and those for the girls were on the seventh floor. Since I was in a double on eight, we’d be just one floor apart for the entire year. The stairwell was even air conditioned and heated for when we wanted to talk after hours.

That summer was a lot harder than any I’d ever had before. Lauren and I had to go to Columbus for a whole bunch of student athlete meetings. There were fitness tests and trainings and weigh-ins. We met with our coaches and the team doctors. By the time we left Lauren and I both had a ton of fitness requirements we had to meet. I had to lose twenty pounds and get my cholesterol down. Lauren only had to lose ten, but she had some pretty major issues with her blood sugar levels. That meant she had to give up almost all processed sugars. Lauren’s answer to not being able to eat candy was to drink huge amounts of real fruit smoothies. They were just frozen fruit, no sugar added juices, honey and Greek yogurt but those things were awesome.

We worked out together every day. We went for a jog together in the mornings. Then we’d take over the Zizes’ kitchen and Lauren would make us each one of her smoothies. I was always shocked by how full I would feel after I had one of those things. We took turns hand washing the blender and putting it back together while the other person fixed a high protein breakfast. I hadn’t been able to have any fatty meats or pork since the doctors’ appointments. I ate a whole lot of chicken, salmon, turkey and lean cut beef that summer. Carbs were a thing of the past. I now knew the difference between simple carbs and complex carbohydrates. Kurt was happy as a clam because he got to go back to buying that crunchy, five grain whole wheat bread. After breakfast, we'd do our summer reading. I had no choice but to do my reading. Lauren did some reading, mainly because she wanted to support me. She had some reading for her fall courses, but I couldn’t even pronounce the author’s first name let alone his last. I think it was Russian or something. She was taking some super-advanced, take this one course and satisfy all your English requirements, class and I was basically in what amounted to remedial English. My list wasn’t too bad, The Outsiders, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Woman Who Walks Into Doors, The Taming of the Shrew , and a couple of books about the Montessori method. Okay the pedagogy books were for my intro education class, but still…other than those, Lauren had already read all the books on my list. She helped me understand a lot about what I was reading. She even bought me this really good pocket dictionary so that I could look things up when she wasn’t around or when she was too deep in her own reading.

When we were done reading for the day, we go into Lauren’s room and Ma’am and Finnie would have a few hours of our own special, super fun, exercise. If I didn’t have that time…I think I would have gone crazy wondering if I could really do the whole college thing. But with Lauren willing to help me, I knew I’d be okay. Plus the more time I spent as Finnie, the better I was able to concentrate, learn and think as Finn. I still hadn’t figured out exactly why that was, but it helped me to put things together and they make sense. Plus Lauren was really, really hot when she was in Ma’am mode. Not that she wasn’t hot regularly…she was just hotter as Ma’am.

My favorite of our ‘Playtimes’ was this one day when Ma’am put me in my cockring and she had me lick and suck her pussy until she almost came then she would tell me to stop and after a few seconds, she would let me start over. When she finally let me make her orgasm, she came so hard and so long and she was so wet that the bed under her was soaked and her pussy juice had gushed out…ever since that day my collar smelled like her. So good. Anyway, after she finally finished cumming, she had me kneel on the floor with my haunches up and my hands on the floor beside my feet. She clambered off the bed and straddled my hips and fucked us both into oblivion. Then, just to tease me, she made me hold my cum for at least five seconds after she took off the cockring. To tell the truth, I don’t remember cumming at all. Lauren says I came so hard that I blacked out. What I do remember was that when I came to, Lauren had my cock in her mouth. The aftershocks were so very awesome. Then we showered together and she washed me as our ‘after care’.

In the afternoons, after we cleaned up from ‘Playtime’, we’d go to the YMCA and either lift weights or swim laps for an hour. When we first started Lauren could lap me easy. She really loved swimming and other than wrestling it was the only exercise she liked to do. I could only do like five or six laps in the hour, Lauren was easily doing twice or three times that many. By the time we had to end our routine to make time for packing and for me to go with the family to take Kurt to school, I was able to do close to twenty five and Lauren was up to forty-seven laps, on average, in an hour. The swimming had helped my overall endurance and stamina too. At the beginning of the summer I could bench the NFL required 225 exactly two times, Lauren was stuck at one. By the end of the summer she was at the five her coach wanted and I was up to twelve…before my arms rebelled and felt like they wanted to jump off and run away. It wasn’t just endurance though, I had dropped twenty nine pounds and my LDL cholesterol was down to sixty five mg/dL, at least according to my family’s general practitioner. Since I was supporting Kurt in fixing heart healthy things, Burt’s cholesterol was way down too. Lauren had lost fifteen pounds, but way more importantly, her doctor was really happy with her sugar count for the first time since middle school. Plus, our muscle tone was ridiculous. We weren’t Sam or Santana, but we were like Super Finn and Wonder Lauren.

When I got back from New York, Lauren had arranged a welcome home/going away dinner for those of us still in Lima. Azimio, Dave and Kevin were happy to come with us, when we ran into Jake, Joe and Steven waiting on a table we decided to let the next gen hang out with us. Dave was getting ready to leave that Saturday to go play football in a small school in Arizona. He’d spent the summer working out with Adams, who often dragged KJ with him. All three of the guys were bigger and more toned. Az and David had been told that as linebackers, they needed to increase their muscle mass. So that was where they had concentrated. Dave had like, no neck…at all. But he did promise not to hide his sexuality at his new school. Adams was very worried that if he retreated into his closet, the next time he got shoved out, he might really do harm to himself. “Besides, one of us has to have the whole ‘collegiate booty getting’ experience. Lil Bird makes sure that I can’t do that shit…but you sure can. Find you a bunch of twinks with a thing for big ol’ bears and keep yourself a whole stable of booty.” Adams told him with a leer.

“You know Kurt would kick you dead in the balls for that statement.” I said quietly.

Az just laughed. “He might, but maybe he’d just appreciate my growth. I’ve gone from slushying him for being all gay and shit to actively supporting gay marriage and getting my gay best friend laid by as many other gay mofos as possible. See, I’ve been looking that shit up online and those are the terms they use. Unless they’re like the n-word, and only gays can say them…is it like that?” he asked me and Dave.

I shrugged. “I’ve never heard Kurt use either word…but he’s not that into talking about sex stuff. If I hadn’t walked in on him and Blaine…totally on accident, well the first time was on accident, the second was because Lauren didn’t believe me about the first time…I don’t know if I would believe that he does sex stuff.”

Dave didn’t know either. “I’ve barely admitted to myself that I am gay, I don’t even know if I like ‘twinks' or 'bears’ whatever that even means…”

Jake laughed. “My brother said that you had a thing for Hummel…so you like twinks. The rail thin, smaller guys are sometimes referred to as twinks, while somebody big, broad and alpha male would be a bear. But to be honest I don’t know if they still use those words or not. I saw them in a porn I saw when I was little.”

Lauren shook her head. “Okay first of all, this conversation is feeling kind of fucked up, so how about we let Dave do Dave…he goes to school, join PFLAG or the Rainbow Brigade or whatever and find a boyfriend or more than one without being prejudiced by what we think that dude should look like. Besides, Joe is about to drop to the floor and start praying for all out immortal souls… Second of all…who the hell let you watch a porno when you were little?”

“It wasn’t like I had permission…I just accidentally pressed play on the DVD player one Sunday morning when Mom was still sleep. Boom, up pops gay porn. It was totally not my fault. But I can admit it was sort of hot…but I knew then that it wasn’t how I wanted to get down.” Jake said with a smirk. “My mom still thinks I don’t know about the DVDs she has hidden in her closet.”

Conversation during the rest of dinner wasn’t any better. That’s the only problem about being able to talk about anything and everything with your friends…they want to talk about any and every thing. After a fruit plate dessert, we said good night to our friends and Lauren and I went out to the lake. We made love, not going into one of our scenes, we just enjoyed one another. Lauren was still on top…but that was because we were in the cab of my truck. I took her home pretty early. We were supposed to leave Lima at seven and I still had some packing left to do. Besides, I’d be seeing Lauren every day. It would be at least a month or more before I got to see my parents again.

Sometimes it still seemed strange that I was now one of those people who had two parents. It was always just me and my mom. Then she met Kurt and through him Burt...and Burt was awesome. In the last couple of years he’d taught me so much. He never judged me…unless I was being an asshole, then he called me on that. Thanks to Burt Hummel, I knew how to change a flat tire, how to change my own oil, how to do quite a few small car repairs and I also knew that what Lauren and I had might not be what a lot of people would consider normal, but we all had different things that made us tick and that normal was way overrated anyway. Even though it was really easy to tell that he was really, really uncomfortable, he took his time to make sure that I took the time to learn how to be Finnie in a way that was safe and sane. He helped me figure out that Finn needed to take care of Lauren like Ma’am takes care of Finnie. At first I’d kind of made Lauren responsible for everything leadership wise, in or out of our ‘playtime’. Burt had pointed out that must have been really exhausting. Especially since she was learning to be Ma’am just like I was learning what it really meant to be Finnie. We didn’t really talk about the sex part because he said that that was usually the least important part of that whole portion of our lives together.

When I got home from the welcome back/see you soon dinner, Burt and Mom were waiting on me. I noticed that there was a largish wrapped box on the coffee table. “Hey guys,” I said with a happy smile as I threw myself into the arm chair I had brought with me from the old house.

“You and Lauren have a good evening?” Mom asked with a knowing smile. Ever since the day after prom, she always has this look on her face whenever she asks that question…one day I was gonna figure out what the look means and why she was looking like that.

I just nodded. “Yeah we went out to dinner with Adams, Karofsky and KJ…ran into Jake, Joe and Steven so we all ate together. Lauren thought we could give those three some sort of direction since the New Directions will still be going next year. Jake was easy, he wanted to try out for football, but you know didn’t want to run into Puck like that. Plus he knows its BadAss and everything. Lauren was all about encouraging it because it will keep him away from home more often. Ever since she met his Mom at the graduation BBQ, she swears that lady gives her the hee-bee jee-bees. Joe thinks he wants to go out for basketball. He plays with his dad and on a team at his church. He could use the extra socialization with kids his age. Plus, I told them how the locker room was a good place to scope new talent for the glee club. The shower acoustics are great. If you’re into music at all, you can’t help but sing when you’re in there. That’s how I found Sam.”

Mom laughed. She had heard the story before from Kurt. It was a lot funnier when he told it. “Well, I’ve gotta agree with you on the Hart boy. He’s a very sweet kid, but he seems very sheltered.” She said rather than pointing out that I’d kind of come across as a creeper the first time I talked to a guy who’d eventually become one of my best friends. “You ready for tomorrow?” she asked coyly.

I both nodded and shrugged. “Pretty much. I’ve still gotta pack up the last of my clothes that you washed this morning and break down my computer for transport.” Sure it was a couple of years old, but it was still functional and it would mainly be used for writing papers. I dreaded the thought of having to go to a computer lab really late at night, especially if I had already put it off way longer than I should have. Plus I had to take it with me. It had all my Sims 2 games on it…all my custom content too. I was pretty sure that Kurt was the only person who knew of my secret addiction to the girly game. Well, Mom might have known too since she was the one who started me on the path to addiction. I had personally loved that game from the very first moment I had found the cheat to make them get naked without the blur.

Mom had actually gotten it for herself, but sense we’d shared a computer, I’d been able to play it too. There was a lot of naughty custom content for free out there for an enterprising young man, and I pretty much had it all. I never even bothered to get Sims three because Mom had stopped playing by then and I had read online that wasn’t any to mod it to make them do the sex stuff. I felt my cheeks heat up as I thought about my girly, guilty pleasure game. I thanked Cheezus that neither of them decided to ask me about that.

“Yeah, about your desktop,” Burt begin in his usual quiet way. “It’s a little old, don’t you think?”

I nodded. “But it still does everything I need it to do.” I defended.

“Maybe so, but will that still be true in a few months when you’re really using it every day?” Mom asked leadingly.

“You might find that you need a better computer by the time you get settled. So we decided to go ahead and get you one now. You can leave the old one in your room here and have your new one with you at school.” Burt said handing me the five inch tall big rectangular box. In some recess of my mind I noticed that there was a smaller box behind it.

I was so completely conflicted, my families, some of them were on their third or fourth generation. But at the same time…a brand new computer. I could take my games with me in a bag and re-install them on the new laptop and start from fresh. Granted a lot of the Sims 2 sites weren’t around anymore…so that kind of sucked, but maybe I could find some of my stuff again. I tore into the paper. “Artie was able to help us get a great deal on that.” He said as I read the box. It wasn’t a name I recognized, but from the specs on the box I was pretty sure that I could build a robot with it. “Kurt said that you wouldn’t want a MacBook, so Artie told us he would handle picking the best one for you. Then he talked to some guy who worked at Best Buy and they did a kind of discount exchange. Geek Squad used our money to buy you this and Artie used his money to get him a MacBook.”

“Burt tried to get that sweet boy to take something for his trouble, I mean, he was taking a pretty big risk…but he said that you were as good as a brother to him and if you can’t help family, who can you help. He wouldn’t let Burt give him a single dime.”

Burt smirked-that rhymed- “Yeah…he thinks he talked me out of paying him. The other day, I gave Gwen’s car a sparkplug and oil change, and changed her air filter. I only charged her for the materials. Artie’s right…family takes care of family…but that doesn’t give us the cart blanche to take advantage of each other either.”

For a second, a wave of guilt passed over me. Before Lauren, before Nationals last year, all too often that was exactly what I had done to all my glee family. I did dumbass, bone headed thing and just assumed they would be fine with me not taking their feelings into consideration…that they would automatically forgive me. But at the same time I wasn’t very forgiving when they did something that hurt my feelings. I wondered for a moment how different would things be if not for Lauren ‘claiming’ me, rescuing me, from Rachel in our ‘warm up’ room in New York.

But things were different. And she had rescued me. And together we were awesome. And I was opening a brand new MSI seventeen point three inch laptop with a sixteen gigabyte RAM and a terabyte and a half hard drive. It came with Windows seven, not that craptacular eight, and Microsoft Office Suite…the whole thing, even PowerPoint and publisher. It would probably be a good thing if I didn’t put Sims 2 on this, A computer this new and nifty might be insulted. Besides, that game was time sucker. One time I meant to play for an hour before bed…I ended up still playing when my alarm went off for me to get up for school. Still reading over the specs on the box I was sure that the look on my face clearly reflected a little kid who’d woke up Christmas morning to find a new bike and a new game system under his tree, both with his name on them. Even knowing that I’d probably end up flunking out of school, I couldn’t help but think that the game would run great on that brand new system and it’s NVIDIA Quadro K3100M GPU. “This is so awesome.” I finally spoke up happily. “Thank you so much. You didn’t have to though; I know that you’re paying a lot for Kurt’s house and everything.”

Mom gave me a small, proud smile. “We know that we didn’t have to…but Finn, we did want to.” She sighed. “Sometimes I feel a little guilty that there is so much more fanfare to Kurt’s departure and that we are spending so much more money on Kurt than on you.” She admitted.

“You shouldn’t.” I said quickly. “His dreams are so much bigger than mine. He has to have the best start possible if he hopes to be able to achieve even half of what he is trying to do. Let’s be honest…with what I want to do, I could go to any school in Ohio. I could go to OSU here in Lima and still find a good job anywhere in the Midwest. But if he’s gonna be on Broadway, he needs NYADA. It can open a lot of doors for him that staying in state just won’t. Same thing if he decides that fashion is where he belongs with FIT. Plus, even if I do something more than just teaching, I could maybe manage Lauren’s wrestling career…they have sports management at OSU too.” I told her honestly. I was not jealous of Kurt…hell if I thought he needed me to, I’d work nights and weekends to send him money for school too. I was that certain that he was going to be great.

“We know that, and you’re a good kid for realizing that that is the reason we’re doing so much for him…but as parents, we inherently want to treat our kids equally.” Burt tried to explain.

“Well, you’re taking us both to school…in fact, I come out ahead on that one because you’re gonna be able to go to my orientation stuff. We had to leave before Kurt even got fully unpacked.” I defended. They were too hard on themselves.

“Thanks kid, but I was trying to say that I was very proud that you realize that we love you both equally, you’re just very different people and so we have to express that love differently for each of you. We’re just trying to give you each the tools you need to make your dreams come true. Hence the new computer and the stipend so that you won’t need to work during school either.” Burt said with a smile. “I’ve decided to advertise my ASE BMW and Mercedes repair and maintenance certification. Drum up some new business. So if you need anything, don’t hesitate to give me, give us a call.”

Before we could do something completely out of character for either of us, like cry or hug or something; Mom passed me the other box and its accompanying card. “This one is from Kurt. He said that I was supposed to tell you that it wasn’t a graduation gift, it was a birthday gift, just a month or three early. He also made us promise not to get mad if you didn’t want us to know what was inside.”

In Kurt’s neat, yet flourish heavy writing on it. “FINN, OPEN FIRST’. I did as he said because I had learned my lesson that first Christmas we’d been brothers not to ignore that kind of warning. Opening a set of silk, day of the week, boxers in front of the parental units was probably more embarrassing than it had to be, but I wasn’t used to Kurt yet at that point. Inside the card was a poem about moving on and growing up…but the important part was written in Kurt’s handwriting. “I saw this when Burt and I were looking at computers. I felt that this would be easier to conceal and keep up with than the nineteen separate cases. The enclosed thirty two gigabyte flash drive should be enough to hole and transfer even all of your custom content and saved games. I’m sure if you share this with Lauren she will help you play sanely. Love your big brother…I’m older even if I am technically smaller…Kurt.’

I smiled and set the gifts down for the moment. “Alright…I guess we’d better let you go and finish packing.” Burt said with a sad smile. “We’ll need to get up around five thirty to finish packing your truck. Does Lauren need us to swing by?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “She has one of those towable U-Haul things…and her dad’s truck’s trailer hitch broke off when they were loading it, so I told them they could hitch it up to mine.”

Mom and Burt both smiled. “Okay. Let her know that we’ll be over there about six thirty so we can be on the road by seven.” Mom told me

I said my goodnights and took everything down to my stripped down and packed up room. I opened the gift to find a totally awesome USB drive that looked like a Swiss army knife, under that he had laid the brand new, I didn’t even realize it had come out already, Sims 2 Ultimate Collection; the base game and all of the expansion packs all rolled into one. We really had promised not to get each other graduation gifts…but no matter what he said, it was nice to see that I wasn’t the only one to break the agreement. I had hidden my ‘early birthday’ gift in his nightstand. So he actually might not have found it until her finished all his unpacking. Not that a collection of flavored massage oils and lubricants, and a huge box of Trojans was even close to being as good as his gift…but I thought I would make sure that I gave him something he would actually use.

I set up the file transfer and went to bed. When I woke up five and a half hours later, I was sort of surprised to see that it still hadn’t finished. I kept checking as I loaded and tarped the back of my truck. By the time I showered, shaved, tossed on my new Buckeyes tee shirt and some jeans, packed up my toiletries and made sure that the last of my stuff was in the truck, it was just about done. It finally finished as I completed my final walk through. I had to eject it and shut the computer down with the quickness.

Lauren was waiting on me when we got there with a huge ass grey and scarlet travel mug full of one of her smoothies. Good thing too, because by the time we got on the road it was almost seven thirty and the parents decided to forgo breakfast until we got to Columbus. Once we were alone in the cab of my truck, I confided my biggest secret, the only one I really had left to my girlfriend. All my worrying was for nothing. “I liked Sims2…I used to have the blowjob chair…that was cool. If you’ll call me before you start playing and tell me how long you plan to play, I’ll call you so you can get to bed, or class, or whatever.”

“Have I told you that you are the best girlfriend ever?” I said with a huge grin.

Lauren laughed. “Not this morning, but it’s early yet.” She sighed. “What are you going to tell your roommate if he asks you about us?”

I reached over on the bench seat and grabbed her hand. “I’m going to tell him that you are my girlfriend and I love you. That you are beautiful and strong and more amazing than any other woman I know…except my mom.”

Her hand squeezed mine. “You’re probably gonna get a lot of bullshit from your teammates. You’re not the big man on campus yet.”

“I don’t give a shit. I’m not the same stupid, insecure, dumbass I was when I thought that beauty was what everyone told me it was. You are beauty. You are love. You are mine. If anyone doesn’t like it they can just suck it.” I defended staunchly. “I know I’m not grown up yet, but I think I’m a lot closer than I was before we got together. I want to be better, be a great person for you.”

“Finn, you are a great person. Your growing into a really, really good man.” She told me with a proud smile. “I love the man you are. But if we’re going to still be together four years, fourteen years from now…we’re going to have to grow together. Otherwise, we’ll grow apart.” I heard something in her voice I wasn’t sure I understood.

“You sound scared or something. What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I…just…yeah. Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. We’re going to be fine.” She strengthened her tone. “But Finn…if you decide that you don’t want me anymore…don’t want us…just tell me. Be real with me.”

I shook my head. “That will never happen. I really, actually love you Lauren. I know our story may not be all romantic like Commune, or as touching as Kurt and Blaine’s but it is just as real.”

“Just promise me Finn. I want to believe that we are never going to need the promise…but make it anyway. Promise me that if you find yourself wanting someone else, you won’t go behind my back, that you’ll come to me as the man I know you are and let me know.” She urged.

Finally I nodded. “I promise. But I want the same. If you get tired of all my neediness…if Finnie is too much for you…you’ll tell me.” I whispered.

“I promise.” She said solemnly. We were both satisfied. We tabled our fears for the rest of the trip and turned our conversation to talking about our future.

The ride was only about two hours long and we pulled up in front of Morrison Tower just a little before ten. A whole lot of people were already milling around. Most of the starters, and all the non-freshmen football players had already been here for the last two weeks. The older guys, who lived closer to the athletics buildings in the Lane Avenue Residence Hall, were on the lawn teasing and tormenting the freshmen as we unloaded our lives. Over near the side of the lawn there was a table with a big sign over it that said ‘Morrison Tower Check In’. Lauren exchanged a few texts with the parents who hadn’t gotten out of the car yet and dragged me over. After meeting our hall director, Marushka Baoh, and her assistant, Michael Lupsa, we showed them our driver’s licenses and the dorm assignment we got as part of our ‘entrance packet’ and we got our official room assignments and our room keys. Lauren was in eight oh nine and I was in seven oh seven. Marushka quickly told us the move in procedures, “Unload on the lawn, leave one of your party to guard your stuff and go park in the garage across the street. Once you’re off the street, so some other resident can unload their vehicle. Then we’ll assign you a couple of helpers to get your stuff up to your rooms. Finn, your roommate…Vincent, Vince, Howard… hasn’t checked in yet. So I guess you’ll get the choice of top or bottom bunk. You two share the bathroom…I will remind you that unlike the community bathrooms, there is no maid service for the in room bathrooms. You will also need to provide your own toilet tissue, paper towels and toiletries. Michael, never Mike…it’s a thing, will tell you more about your move in schedule.”

Michael then gave us a quick rundown of the best scenario time table. “Ideally, we’d like everyone moved in by two pm. That will allow us to clean up the lawn while you freshmen head to the security office and get your IDs made, pay your parking fees and get your decal. Please let your parents know that there is a parent luncheon with the faculty scheduled for twelve thirty at Traditions at Morrill.” He circled something on the one of the campus maps. “Here is a parent orientation packet for each of you. They have all their own things. Once you guys have your IDs made, find your faculty advisor’s office, and schedule your orientation meeting come back here. We’re holding a ‘get to know each other’ pizza party at three thirty. Then we’ll catch the shuttle all together and you can meet up with your parents for the president’s address at The Oval. They will be able to go home after that…unless they decide to take you out to dinner before they leave. Tomorrow you have a full schedule of activities, Monday are your advisory meetings, and for our Student Athletes you also have weigh-ins and physicals…then you get to experience the joys of buying your books and all that. Classes start Wednesday.”

They had this shit down to an exact science. Neither Lauren nor I wanted to rock the boat, so we quickly unloaded her U-Haul trailer, and the back of my truck. Then Ben, Laura and Mom stood with our stuff while Lauren, Burt and I drove the cars to the Eleventh Ave Garage and parked them carefully, the trailer ended up getting its own space. Burt told us that we’d take it back before they headed back to Lima since Mom’s car couldn’t tow it any more than Ben’s truck would have. When we got back to our stuff, Marushka gave us two ‘helpers’ named Greg and Justin, both of whom were skinnier than Kurt. But between the eight of us we got our stuff up the seven to eight flights of stairs. Thankfully most of my packing had been supervised by Kurt when he was doing his own, all my boxes had big ass labels on them with my name, dorm name, room number…thank god it hadn’t changed between the unofficial assignment and the actually, official key handing over. Lauren had of course done something similar so it was pretty straight forward and fairly easy.

We went in shifts, concentrating first on getting Lauren’s stuff up to her room. Laura stayed with our things while the other seven of us carried thing up to L’s eighth floor room. The room itself wasn’t huge about fourteen feet by eleven and a half. It had built in wardrobes and dressers for two, and two desks that Lauren immediately set up in the far corner. She whipped out a measuring tape and measured the space that she would need to fill to make the desk a corner unit. While they had left both desks in the room, they had removed the top bunk bed one of the desk chairs. I saw Lauren write down something after the measurements as she looked around the room. She took a few more measurements then we all headed back down and brought up more of her stuff. The next trip half of us got off at seven to take my things while the rest took her final boxes and stuff to her room.

The room I’d been assigned was a little bigger than Lauren’s. Mainly because my roommate and I had a bathroom and we had a closet. But overall about fourteen by twelve seemed about right for the main room. The bathroom was normal size, about the same size as the bathrooms had been in the basement apartments in Kurt and everyone’s house in Harlem. It had a sink with a medicine cabinet above it, a toilet and a bathtub shower combo. Everything looked clean, but Mom and Kurt had made me promise that I would scrub everything down before I really used anything. But that proved to be a moot point anyway since Mom pulled a pair of rubber gloves out of her purse, grabbed the small box of cleaning supplies I’d been compelled, which I knew meant forced…thanks to Lauren, to bring with me and went to work while Burt, Justin and I headed back down to bring up more stuff. Ben, Lauren and Greg were already on their way back up and Laura grabbed the last of my stuff and all four of us headed to the room.

By the time we got everything up to the rooms and Mom, Burt and I started unpacking my stuff, Vince had arrived. He was a tall, black dude, a little taller than me, broader too. He reminded me of Mercedes brother Devon, just you know, younger. I hoped he was as good on the football field as Devon had been. I introduced myself and told him I’d waited to see which one of us was bigger to see who got the top bunk. “No offense, I’ll take it…you look like you’ve got me by a couple of inches and more than a few pounds.”

“That is just fine with me…I don’t particularly care for heights anyway.” he told me with a friendly grin. He introduced his high school football coach and mentor, Eric Taylor and Coach Taylor’s wife Tami. I introduced my parents and tried not to wonder where his were. Or notice that they and his helper had been able to bring up all his stuff in one trip. “So remind me again…you’re a quarterback right?”

I nodded. “Running back if needed too and you were a strong safety and a cornerback?” We talked football while we concentrated on getting our bathrooms set up. We had emailed a list of what we were each bringing after they had given us each other’s contact information. Vince didn’t have a facebook page, so we’d kept it to emails. He’d taken the bathroom paper goods, while I took things like soap and air freshener and the first set of cleaning products. Of course, we each had our own towels and toothpaste and such. Once the bathroom was finished getting set up, we took turns showering and changing so we wouldn’t look gross on our IDs. The parents had already headed over to their event, so we scooped up Lauren and made our way down to my truck. Like Lauren, Vince didn’t have a car so he Lauren and I all smooshed into the cab of my rebuilt nineteen ninety nine Chevy Silverado and motored across campus to Blankenship Hall, where the campus security office was located.

Vince was a decent conversationalist. He was able to talk pro wrestling with Lauren and he liked the same video games we were into. I could kind of tell he didn’t get me and Lauren together, but he was doing that same not asking about it thing I had done on the whole ‘mentor not parents’ thing. I knew we’d have to talk about it later, but that wasn’t the right time. The University Police Station was more than a mile from our dorm, so it was a very good thing we hadn’t tried to make it on foot. Since we drove rather than trying to walk or catch the shuttle, we got there pretty quickly and ahead of the bulk of the crowd. It took us only about thirty minutes to get through the line. We had to present our driver’s licenses again, then they passed us to a maroon version of one of those DMV/school photo background screen. We took our pictures…I smiled, Lauren raised one eyebrow and smirked, and Vince gave a grin that made him look more like Devon Jones not less.

“Dude, you look entirely too much like our girl Cede’s big brother Devon.” Lauren laughed as they were handing us our OSU IDs with their UNDER 21 hologram, watermark thingy.

Vince gave her a ‘judging you’ face. “Yeah, all black folks look alike.” He seemed a little offended as he took his ID.

I wanted to make sure he knew we were not at all like that, so I stopped twisting my ID, making the hologram catch the light and then disappear. “She’s right dude…hold up.” I pulled out my phone and pulled up a picture of Lauren and Devon in an impromptu barbeque eating contest at the Jones Fourth of July picnic from the summer before senior year.

I showed it to him and he looked surprised. “Damn, I do look like him. If I didn’t know for a fact my daddy is my daddy, I’d be asking for a test or something.”

I chuckled. “His parents have been together since the eighties. You might be a long lost cousin, or something…but that would be about it.”

Vince rolled his eyes. “Lovely fairytale that…but just because moms and dads say they’ve been true don’t make it the truth.”

Lauren laughed this time. “Oh no…Dr. Benton Jones, DDS has been faithful as an angel. You can tell because he’s still alive and still has his dick. Dr. Danica Jones, DDS, OS don’t play. Five foot nothing compared to his six four or five and she’d have still took him to the carpet and made him choke on his own balls if he’d cheated on her. She is fuckin’ awesome.”

I just nodded. “Mercedes, our friend…she scares the pee out of me…not literally cause that would be gross, but still she gets this look in her eyes like she’s reading your soul just to see what the best way to hurt you the most is. Usually she calms down before she actually does anything, but one time she shoved two pounds of frozen tater tots up the tail pipe of the cheerleading coach’s car…just because Coach Sue banned them from the cafeteria.”

“Damn…” Vince breathed only slightly impressed. He just didn’t understand.

“Coach Sylvester is evil personified…but she loved that car…the only other thing she loved was her sister…who died later that year.” Lauren tried to explain.

“I guess maybe you’ll have to meet her…then you’ll understand why she’s scarier than our friend that carries razors in her hair.” I told him honestly. “They are both dangerous, but there’s something sneaky about Mercedes…no not sneaky…but…devious maybe.” I fumbled.

Lauren smirked. “What I am about to tell you can never be mentioned around Kurt, Adams or Dave.” She warned. Vince shrugged. He didn’t know who those people were so he couldn’t tell them. I didn’t think I would…but just to be sure Lauren barked, “Finnie.”

I knew that was an order, I promised and knew I would never, ever even think about slipping. “Yes Ma’am.”

“Okay…Dave was a guy on the football team at our high school. He tortured Finn’s stepbrother Kurt…mainly because Dave is gay and had a crush on the very out and proud Kurt. It got so bad that Dave eventually stole Kurt first kiss, threatened to kill him if he told anyone and chased Kurt our of our school. You know how Kurt didn’t tell Mercedes any of that for months…and even when he did, he didn’t tell her the whole entire story until last year. At Mercedes and one of her boyfriends, Sam’s birthday party, a friend of Kurt’s outted Dave in front of everybody by getting Dave to give him a blow job and get caught. It wasn’t Sebastian’s idea…it was Mercedes’. Well, not the forcing him out of his closet thing, but she did point Sebastian in Dave’s direction and told him that Dave had been the one to scare Kurt so bad he ran to Dalton. She just kind of wanted to see him fucked and dumped though that night she was okay with Sebastian’s improv…I only know because she felt so bad after Az had to stop Dave from offing himself she needed to confess and she knew I wouldn’t judge... not negatively…if you ask me it was pretty much the perfect revenge. Dave’s worse fear was having everyone know he was gay. He had hurt her Kurt, so he had to pay. She made his worst fear a reality.” Lauren said quietly. “That’s why Mercedes tries so hard to stay good and be a good Christian…because when she isn’t…its really bad.”

“Damn…” Vince and I both breathed. “If I ever do meet her, remind me to stay on her good side.”

I nodded emphatically. “What he said.”

Lauren laughed merrily. “As long as you don’t hurt any of her loved ones…you’ll be just fine. Why do you think Rachel never really plotted anything that would hurt Kurt, she always aims her shit throwing at Miz Jones…that little bitch is crazy…not suicidal.”

I don’t care who you were there was no version of that kind of statement that wasn’t hilarious. We laughed until we had tears on our faces. By the time we got back to the dorm, the ice wasn’t just broken it was obliterated. We stuck together for the rest of the day’s orientation events and when we got back to our room we talked as we unpacked. I found out that Vince’s dad was an ex con and even worse than Puck and Jake’s dad. His mom had died of cancer not long after she had finally begun to overcome a bad drug addiction. His Coach’s Family had taken him in and made sure that he graduated and got a full ride to a college. I told him my backstory, even about my crazy ex and the love I’d found with Lauren.

Vince’s high school crew wasn’t as tight knit as the New Directions, even though they had been through some tough stuff together too. He and made a few friends that he kept in contact with, but he seemed really shocked at the sheer number of people I had no choice but to keep in contact with. I told him about my family and how we’d gone from being a dad and son and a mom and son to being an actual, it’s hard to be without them family. We found out that we did have a few things in common, like he had a friend who was a a teenage dad with a cheerleader baby mama too. While we unpacked our desk stuff, we talked about our majors. Vince wanted to go into sports medicine, if he couldn’t make it into the NFL. He laughed at the look on my face as I shared with him my feelings on getting drafted to the pros. “The NFL is kind of like the lottery; if you play, yeah it’s great to win the big prize. But while tons of people play the game, only a handful ever win. I’m just gonna enjoy playing the game.”

“I guess I’m like my Geema, if I’m gonna play, I’m gonna hope and pray for the biggest jackpot of them all right up until the day I can’t play no more.” He tossed back.

“Well then make sure that you take all the accounting and management classes you can, so you can watch the people who are handling your money.” We shared a look.

“Damn straight, I can’t go out like Wesley Snipes.” Vince laughed. When we were emailing back and forth after we got our roommate assignments, we’d talked about what we were each comfortable having up on the walls of our room. Mr. Schuester had sent me a big Buckeyes Banner after graduation, so we put that up on the wall between our desks above the microfridge. We’d agreed that while we might put up suggestive pin-up posters, no actual naked girls. I’d found a great poster of a pretty girl with long black hair in a peacock blue short corset dress, black stockings and blue heels. The best part was she was wearing Lauren’s blow job red lipstick. I used the sticky tack that we had to use on the walls to prevent damage. “You sure do like your thick girls don’t you?”

“I guess so. Before Lauren and I got together, I had a poster with a girl who looked like this, a lot more naked, but I was going back and forth between a girl who looked like she could have been Elle Woods’ much prettier sister and a girl who looked like Sam from the third season of Who’s the Boss, only dressed in Garanimals, but with a nose that would have made Barbra Streisand say ‘Damn’…the worst part was that neither of them let me get past second base.” I admitted with a self-deprecating chuckle. I looked over at his poster and found a cool street scene with a pretty black woman walking toward the camera. She had curly hair and was thin but very shapely. Her belly was bared in a small shirt and her legs were bared by a skirt that was longer in the back than in the front. “That’s cool, but it doesn’t look like a real picture?” I was a little confused.

“It was made with a graphic design software called Poser. This cat out of Atlanta, calls himself Mr. Synnerster, has all these epic pictures on his site, and you can order them in different sizes off deviant art.” He explained.

We worked together to put up the big cork board I’d brought and then we opened the door to our room and put up the two twelve inch square dry erase boards. “They are missing something.” We shrugged and headed back into the room. I dug through my few actual photographs and found one of Lauren and I that Benton had taken at his Fourth of July picnic that summer. Vince had to grab one of his ‘candid’ senior pics. We tacked those up above the boards and wrote our names at the top. We made sure that there were dry erase markers, and headed back in to do some more unpacking. I went to put away the pictures from the BBQ and made a quick choice. “Hey want to see my friends?”

“Sure.” I showed him each of the people I had been telling him about and he laughed. “Are you kidding me? The girls in your clique are all fucking hot as hell, Not trying to be a pig, just the truth, but the thing that is blowin’ my mind is you’ve got two threesomes going hard core in your group…y’all are something else.”

I hid a smile and wondered what he would thing if he knew what Lauren and my real deal was. I sat down and started putting together the black, five drawer, rolling cart that Kurt had convinced me to buy to act as my linen closet. Great minds must have thought alike, Vince pulled out a white version of the same thing and started assembling it as well. I had brought two bed-in-a-bags, and two spare sets of sheets. I’d grabbed one of my mom’s fleece blankets that morning because I hadn’t thought about getting any. For a second I tried to decide which comforter set to use and which one to put away. Either one of them could go on the bed immediately. Kurt had washed them all and packed them for me with dryer sheets in them before he left, so they were soft and clean and fresh. I had one set that was dark gray, lighter gray, white and red horizontal stripes of different thicknesses, and one that was blue, red and white plaid. I decided to hold off on the plaid until winter and put the gray one on my bed now.

I put away my linens in the finished cart. Four thin and four thick wash clothes went into the top drawer along with all the extra bars of Ivory. The next drawer got my hand towels, I had four of those too…not even sure why, that’s what the paper towels are for. I shoved my extra toothbrushes and toothpaste in there too. My bath sheets and regular towels went in the third drawer, my three extra sheet sets and pillowcases in the fourth and my not currently in use comforter in the bottom. There was a great spot behind the bathroom door that it rolled into. At first we couldn’t find a place for Vince’s, but finally we took off the wheels and stacked it on top of mine.

He made his bed and I noticed that he’d only brought one comforter…it was a million shades of blue in horizontal lines, it almost looked like we’d done it on purpose. He had another storage container, one of the long flat kind just for his blankets, and he had like six or seven of them. “Dude, do you have enough blankets?”

Vince shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. It snows here right?” I nodded. “Then probably not.” At the look of shock on my face he continued. “Man, I’m from Texas…hot as the fires of Hell I can handle…colder than a whore’s heart…not so much.”

It took us until three in the morning to get everything unpacked. Then we cleaned up the room and went to sleep. We hadn’t had the chance to go to the grocery store or Sprawl-Mart the day before with the parents, so they decided to come back. I think Vince figured he’d chill in the room and start getting his stuff together for his advisory meeting, but he didn’t realize how 'not those people' mine and Lauren’s parents are. Laura made sure that he knew that he had no choice he was coming with us. We’d found out the night before that he could talk cars with Burt even better than Kurt and when he found out that Laura was a serious motorcycle nut…it was all over. I knew Vince would be spending holidays with either the Hudson-Hummels or the Zizes as long as he wanted to.

The moms had looked around Vince and my room and made a list…Lauren already had hers made. Sprawl-Mart was first. A big, plastic shelf thing with doors for the bathroom was purchased as was another, smaller three drawer cart to hold our non-refrigerator snacks and paper plates and cups and stuff. Vince and I were able to agree on the laundry stuff so we pooled our money and just bought one big thing of everything we needed. Apparently that was what the big shelf thing in the bathroom was going to be for. Burt had it put up in like ten minutes and it was loaded with the toilet paper, paper towel, laundry stuff cleaning stuff and other things like that. Lauren just put all her stuff in the extra built-ins in her room.

When we finished with the stuff in our room and went down to Lauren’s. She had her room together. She had made up her bed with her black, white and hot pink bedding. She had set up her tricked out iMac twenty-seven inch computer on one, and had the other ready for her laptop. I knew that she had the iMac mainly for her movie editing. The laptop would be where she typed her papers and that kind of thing. She had extra lamps, and her Ninja blender was set up on her microfridge and the room smelled great. The parents took us out to lunch and we had to send them home for real. Vince went to work out while Lauren and I did some exercising of our own. Ma’am made me lie on her bed and hold off my orgasm until she had gotten off eight times. It was so amazing when she finally let me cum. We finally came up for air just in time for dinner. Vince introduced us to some of the other freshmen athletes he’d met.

The next day the three of us got up early. Lauren made us smoothies, we helped her wash her Ninja in the kitchen at the end of her hall and then we ran to the RPAC. First all three of us worked out on the weight machines. There were a few other people there, but not many since it was before seven. We did an hour on the machines and then Lauren and I started working with Vince showing him how doing laps could help improve his endurance and stamina. The run from the RPAC back to the dorm was ill advised. We so should have thought about how tired we’d be. Unfortunately there was no rest for any of us. I had to hurry and shower to get to my advisory meeting. After I met with my advisor and got my schedule, I had to rush to make my scheduled weigh in. My numbers from my Lima family doctor were made official. The coaches were all really happy. So was I, especially when they told me that a couple of the other freshmen quarterback hopefuls had failed to make the required fitness levels and if they didn’t shape up by the end of the probationary period they might get benched, which could open up more money for those who do make the cut come second semester. That would be awesome.

Vince and Lauren both came back from their weigh-ins happy too. The coaches were way happy with their fitness levels and Lauren’s sugar levels were almost perfect. After lunch we hit the campus bookstore nearest the dorm. Lauren had a great idea. We only bought the paperback books on our lists in the store. Then we went back to the dorm and bought less expensive digital versions of the books that were only available in hardback. Since we were all just taking some of our core curriculum classes that first semester, it wasn’t like we were cheaping out on our major text books. When we made it back to the dorm, Lauren introduced Vince and I to a few of the girls on her floor. Felicity and Sophia lived in eight eleven and both girls played field hockey. They were cool…kind of rough and tumble. I think L was a little surprised to find girls who she had so much in common with. She also found some common ground with one of the girl basketball players. A six foot tall center named Lisa who lived across the hall. Lisa didn’t just hit it off with Lauren either…I might have been channeling my inner Kurt, but I think I saw some sparks between Lisa and Vince.

I smiled to myself. When we were leaving Lima, I was a little scared that it would be Lauren and I against the world at college. It was nice to see that we were moving into the future making good friends to add to the ones we already had.


	12. The Distance (Cake)

CHAPTER 11B  
The Distance (Cake)  
Mike PoV

Before we even came close to getting on the road, my dad had our whole itinerary planned out. Honestly, I think he had it planned out before Tina and I even made it back from Asian Camp. It was a thirty eight hour drive from Lima to Berkeley. Dad had found hotels in Lincoln, Nebraska and Salt Lake City, Utah, which meant that we would drive roughly twelve hours each day for three days. He determined that that was way too much driving for one person, and since we had six licensed drivers...we were going to break each day down into two-six hour-shifts. With the four door, gun metal gray Nissan Leaf my parents had gotten me for graduation-which, by the way, I only received it after we got back from Asian Camp and they were sure that we hadn’t gotten pregnant- and the smallish U-Haul truck we’d rented to haul Tina and my stuff. Tina and I would switch off in the car on days one and three while Dad and Mrs. Cohen drove the truck on day one and Mr. Cohen and I traded off on day two. On the second day my mom and Tina would drive my car and on the third day Dad and Mr. Cohen would handle the truck. Our luggage for the trip was packed in the car, and all Tina and my college stuff was locked up tight in the U-Haul.

The trip itinerary we followed was really well organized. We left Lima around nine in the morning on the eleventh. On the way out of town we’d stopped and we each grabbed huge Groovy Smoothie smoothies. Tina was my co-pilot while our moms chatted quietly in the back seat. Once we were on the highway and she didn’t have to pay attention to the maps Dad had printed out, like my car and phone didn’t have GPS, Tee turned to me. “So, you still worried about your roommate?” she asked quietly so as not to disturb the moms who had fallen asleep by the time we were an hour away from Lima.

“You’ve seen the videos of him. He’s a complete asshole.” I lamented. Google wasn’t my friend when it came to the roommate Stanford had assigned me. “Nevel Papperman has to be the worse example of humanity I’ve ever seen and I know Rachel Berry. Did you not see the video I sent you, the one where he was yelling at that poor little girl, and then he tops it off by yelling at some poor guy in a wheelchair. He’s lucky that guy was nice, Artie would have fucked him up.”

“I get it…he was a highly offensive person…but Mike, those videos are both over a year old. What if he changed? He could have learned from his mistakes.” she asked with a reassuring grin.

I rolled my eyes. “We’ve seen how well supercilious people who are completely assured of their own inherent superiority ‘learn from their mistakes’.” I said pointedly.

Tina just smiled. “Okay…you have a valid point… I just think you should give him a chance. See if he’s capable of being a decent human being. If he isn’t, then you can treat him with all the disdain you want.”

“Alright. But if he starts acting like he owns the place or like I should consider myself lucky to think of myself as his servant, all bets are off.” I finally agreed. “At least you and your roommate are getting cool with each other. But still Donna Jo…with that name I’d have thought she was from Sam’s old hometown, not San Francisco.”

I loved Tina’s giggle. “She prefers to be called DJ.”

“Still I’m surprised that she’s paying all that money to live thirty minutes from home.” I said with a grin.

“I asked her that very same thing. Apparently she has two younger sisters, plus two younger cousins, all in her house. Quiet is a relative term there, she said. Living on campus will let her be able to focus on her studies. But she also wants to be close enough to go home every weekend. She swears that she’d miss them too much if she moved further away.”

“So she wants to go home every weekend?” I murmured. That was insanity. The best part about college was getting far enough away from my parents that I could finally find out exactly who the hell I was.

“After the first month, her uncle or her godfather are planning to be there to pick her up every single Friday she doesn’t call to tell them otherwise.” Tina smirked. “Her father won’t let her have a car until sophomore year.”

Even though it was suggested that we contact our roommates and get to know them…I couldn’t bring myself to do more than email Papperman a brief email that basically said that I would be a very busy student since I was double majoring in Structural Biology and Dance and told him what electronics and other common use things I’d be bringing. “How weird is it that we’re both in dorms called Stern Hall?” I decided to move away from the whole ‘roommate’ issue.

“It’s not weird…it’s cute. Besides, your dining hall and study areas are Stern Hall, your dorm is Burbank House…Be honest with Mike…You’re a wizard, aren’t you? So is Burbank House like Ravenclaw or Slytherin?”

“Oh shut it.” I laughed. “So did your parents ever agree on which meal plan they were getting you?”

Tina cut her eyes back towards her mother. “Mom, somehow, managed to convince Dad to go with the ultimate plan. Mainly because that way I can basically grocery shop in the dining halls and in the on-campus stores. They can’t afford to send me more than two hundred to two fifty a month. So I’m gonna need to make sure that I budget well, but I think I would have been fine with the basic plan. They increased the amount of their PLUS loan to pay for the ultimate plan.”

I thought about that for a minute. I knew that Tina was very concerned about the fact that her parents wouldn’t allow her to take out more than ten thousand a year in her own student loans. With her having gotten a little over twenty five thousand in grants and scholarships, that still left her parents with over twelve grand a year they had to be responsible for. The Cohens had some decent money saved for her schooling, but Tee was worried that they would have to take out even more loans than they were telling her. “Tee, I know how you are feeling, but I think you’ve got to remember something…your parents’ job is to give you the best possible start in life. This is all part of that. Trust them to do what’s best for all three of you.”

“I get what you’re saying, I really do. But I don’t want them to have to work until they are a hundred to pay off a debt that should be mine.” She worried.

I shrugged but reached across the center console to grab and squeeze her hand. “So go to college, do a great job, make a huge splash as the Asian J-Lo -a true triple threat- and you can pay off all your student loans and their loans too.” My baby smiled at me, her worries laid to rest for the moment.

The first part of our journey was a three hundred and ninety mile jaunt before we stopped for lunch at a small little local diner in East Moline Illinois called Smokey’s Country Diner. It catered to Mom’s disdain of franchise restaurants and it catered to Dad’s refusal to eat at any place with less than a four star Google plus or yelp rating. The food was great and the portions were huge. After lunch we drove straight through to Lincoln. Despite the fact that Tina and I were just days from being pretty much together twenty four hundred miles away from their ‘supervision’, our parents refused to allow us to get a room together. Instead, we were each stuck sharing a double bed room with our parents. It completely sucked. I would have killed to share a room with Tina. The three weeks since we got back from Asian camp had been hell. I had gotten very used to sleeping wrapped around Tina. I missed waking up with her every morning.

Dad had planned everything down to the very last detail. He had managed to find charging stations at every stop point along the route, including the hotels. On day two we got an even earlier start. We took advantage of the continental breakfast. No one didn’t eat breakfast; the night before we’d all eaten the leftovers from lunch, and while it had been enough to fill us at the time...we were all starving the next morning. Checking out of the hotel, we were back on the road by eight. It was kind of weird being trapped in the cab of a U-Haul with my girlfriend’s dad, but we made it through…mainly because we didn’t talk about anything but school and what I wanted to do in the future. I did share with him Tina’s concerns about their taking on so much of ‘her’ debt. He sighed and thanked me for taking care of his little girl. He told me to keep up the good job and went back to reading on his Nook.

We had lunch at a great pizzeria in Cheyenne, Wyoming. While my Leaf charged, Mr. Cohen and I fueled up the truck, and the ladies and my dad all went to stretch their legs. The night was spent in Salt Lake City at a Hilton Garden Inn. I was still stuck in the empty bed in a room I shared with my parents. Though Tina and I did sneak away to have a nice dinner by ourselves at a nearby TGIFridays. The next morning we all had breakfast together before we checked out of the hotel. We were underway by seven thirty. We stopped for lunch at a great place in Winnemucca, Nevada, that had some awesome fresh squeezed orange juice. The food ranged from omelets and salads to burgers and toasted pecan French toast. The place was really good. We ate so much, we all had to take a walk before we could get back into the vehicles and start the last leg of our trip.

We arrived in Berkeley the night before move-in day at either of our schools. We spent the night at the Fairfield Inn in Hayward California, thirty minutes from either Berkeley or Stanford. The hotel was very pretty and had the required charging station. Tina and I quickly decided that that hotel would be our getaway spot. The next morning, Tina’s move-in went flawlessly. As part of her shopping spree, she had gotten enough different size Sterlite and Rubbermaid containers to hold every single thing she had to pack, as well as a new set of luggage for her clothes. Those containers, with their strong, not easily broken handles, made move-in much more laid-back than it would have been with a bunch of boxes.

DJ Tanner had already checked in and her family had no problem helping us with Tina’s stuff too. She greeted Tee like they were long lost friends and pretty quickly thereafter the two of them were directing me, DJ’s Uncle Jessie, her godfather Joey, her dad Danny and her boyfriend Steve in rearranging the two hundred and twenty four square foot room into a configuration they preferred. They put their beds head to head under the room’s two windows with one of the room’s two small three shelf bookcases between them. The room’s two large wardrobes were turned so that they were on the interior walls rather than bracketing the doorway as it had been. That left enough room in the corners to have the desks turned catty corner in those two corners on either side of the door. The two walls on either side of the door weren’t equal, so on one side there was enough room for the remaining bookcase.

Unfortunately my family and I had to go and move me in. We left the Cohens and Tina to unpack and continued on in the half empty U-Haul. It had taken us two hours to leave Berkeley, but thankfully that time had allowed traffic to clear. We drove the hour to Stanford and got there around ten thirty. I checked in and found that Nevel had arrived right after the dorms opened. Our room was a little bit smaller than the one I’d just left my heart in at Berkeley. Though where Tina’s room longest walls were the door and window walls, those were both fairly short walls in our room. The longest walls were the interior walls that separated us from the other rooms on either side of ours. Nevel had claimed the right side of the room, so after introducing myself, I just started putting my stuff away on the left side of the room. Each side had a wardrobe located on the walls on either side of the door. The beds were along the shared walls. At the foot of the beds, or the head depending on how you chose to orient yours, we each had a desk and chair. Beyond those, on either side of the room’s large window, there were two built-in five shelf bookcases. Under the window, the last of the furniture, two seven drawer low, short dressers rested.

Nevel’s bed was already made with a bed set that looked like a night scene in a bayou or something. It was very nice and seemed to be made of uber expensive material. His parents were nowhere to be seen, they had already left for the parental orientation activities. After my parents helped me haul my stuff up to the room they quickly disappeared to go to the activities they were slated to attend. Thankfully my girl had seen fit to take care of me too, so my move-in was just as stress-free as hers had been. As soon as my new roommate and I were alone, he turned to me and calmly said, “I suppose that given the videos and other details that come up online when you Google my name, it is only to be expected that you’d be reticent and worried about rooming with me. However before I try to assure you that I have changed or that I can or will behave differently, I feel that should also tell you that I am very probably a homosexual. I’ve only ever been attracted to one girl in my life and to be quite honest if you were not very clearly Asian, I’d say that you looked like an elongated version of her. My therapist hopes that some of my bad behavior will abate when I finally allow myself to explore my sexuality.”

I bit back a laugh. “Closets can be cozy…but every person I know who has spent too much time in theirs is usually a bitch to be around.” I told him honestly. “I’ve promised my girlfriend that I’d give you a chance...so if you do feel you’ve changed, like my friend Mercedes says, ‘don’t talk about it, be about it’. That being said, despite the stereotypes I know are linked with one of my majors, I’m really straight. I have no trouble accepting you and being your friend, no matter what your sexual orientation, but if you hit on me…I’ll probably get pissed. Not because I’d be offended by being hit on by a gay guy, but because you now know that I have a girlfriend and if you disrespect her…that would be a big ass issue for me.”

He nodded in understanding. “I look forward to meeting her. You mentioned that you are majoring in more than one field. So am I, film and media studies and computer science.” Nevel posed the last statement as a question obviously wanting to know my majors.

“I’m majoring in Structural Biology and Dance.” I said simply.

Nevel gave me a weird look and then just smirked. “Wow, okay…those two couldn’t be further apart on the sense-making spectrum.”

I just shrugged and he let the issue drop. We did more mundane getting-to-know you talking as we each finished our unpacking. The community bathroom wasn’t too bad. It was clean and the shower stalls were both tall and wide enough for comfortable showering. Thankfully all those summers at Asian camp meant that I was already used to showering in shower shoes. Nevel hated it. He stayed in the bathroom until he was fully dressed; I threw on my boxers and robe and headed back to put on something decent to go and get my ID made and start the orientation events. My parents and I went out to dinner. They had returned the U-Haul during a break in their activities and would be heading to meet the Cohens at SFO, the closest airport. I drove them to the airport, the Cohens had taken a cab, they had refused my offer of a ride since the car was decently comfortable for four…five not so much.

The next day was a flurry of activity. I managed to meet with my advisor and get my books. Then I drove up to Berkeley and Tina helped me get the things I would need for my dance classes. We went out to dinner and had a very nice night at that pretty Fairfield Inn in Hayward. We did each remember to call our roommates so they wouldn’t worry. The night was wonderful; while we were smiling like loons when I dropped her off outside her dorm after we checked out, the truth was that neither of us had gotten any sleep at all. I made my way back to my campus and crashed. Classes started bright and early Monday morning. Summer was officially over and the future was calling.


	13. You’ve Got That Thing (Cole Porter)

You’ve Got That Thing (Cole Porter)  
Quinn PoV

The summer after my high school graduation was not at all what I had expected. James, the guy I was truly developing very, very strong feelings for, called me every morning and we skyped every night. James was spending the summer in California working with his uncle’s production company. So we were talking and texting and sexting and anything else we could to make the distance not matter so much. Beyond my twice daily conversations with James, I talked to Mercy everyday even though she was running hither and yon all over the map. She made sure that she talked to me every day rain or shine. I don’t know if anyone can really understand what a difference being friends, sisters, with Mercedes Jones had made in my life. If she and Puck hadn’t confronted me…if Sam hadn’t forced the issue, I’d have never told a soul.

At the time of his arrest, Dad was actually in the process of trying to establish a ‘franchise’ of his land development business in California. Mom wasn’t fighting him having visitation. He would have had me to himself in California. I liked to think that he wouldn’t have continued his aberrant behavior…but the truth was that I had no faith in that thought. Dad was never one not to do what made him feel good. Sometimes I have nightmares about a Quinn who had gone to California and came back with pink hair, clothes even crazier than they were before the conversation with Mercy and Puck the year before, and a tattoo of some weirdly-almost-androgynous Hollywood personality. I would have hated to have become that Quinn. But thanks to Mercy and Puck and Coach Sue…I wouldn’t have to find out whether or not I’d have gone there.

Instead, I spent the summer in Lima. In a home that belonged fully to my big sister and myself. The master suite was cleared of every trace of my mother or father and Frannie had come home one weekend and we’d changed everything we could about the space. We’d stripped down the wallpaper and painted the room a truly gorgeous teal with silver flecks. Through Mr. Patterson, Frannie had talked Daddy into paying to have the flooring switched from a light wheat Berber to a light golden fossilized strand solid bamboo hardwood. We weren’t able to do much in the bathroom but change out the sink, tub and shower faucets and change the bathroom linens. We sold all Mom’s, kind of tacky, Hollywood Regency style furniture and replaced it with some nice classic lines of a colonial style bedroom set with good quality mattresses. Mom’s clothes were boxed up and put into the basement; she could have them back whenever she got out.

Unfortunately for her, a fight with another inmate had been pinned on her and her sentence was extended by six months. Between Santana Lopez and Sue Sylvester, they have connections everywhere. As I understand it Shane Tinsley had ended up running afoul of one of the few friends Puck made during his unfortunate incarceration. It was nice to have friends with friends in low places. It was just too bad their connections were all in the regular prisons, not in the cushy country club types of places my Dad was in. Well that wasn’t exactly true, Coach Sue had an in at Daddy’s prison, but she wanted him out making money that he was contractually obligated to spend on me and Frannie.

Shelby’s lease was up at the beginning of July. In the first few days after graduation, Shelby, Frannie and I talked everything through and had Attorney Patterson create a lease. She and Beth moved into ‘the Fabray Mansion’ right after her original lease term ended. So we had most of the month of June to make the changes. Frannie took over the master suite for when she came home. We also updated the guest suite on the second floor down the hall from my bedroom. It was a bedroom and bathroom that just needed some new flooring, a fresh coat of paint an updated fixtures in the bathroom. My big sister and I had a great time changing the bedroom between the guest suite and my own into a bedroom fit for a princess. I told Mercy about it and next thing I knew, Ms. Becah, Mama Dani, and Mrs. Gabby came over with a whole bunch of stuffed animals and games and stuff for Beth’s room…one of which was a huge purple unicorn that Mercedes had had for a very long time. The second Shelby and I showed Beth her room, she glommed onto that unicorn and it hasn’t been more than a few feet away from her the whole summer.

Around the same time Shelby and Beth moved in, I got my residential college, dorm and roommate assignments from Yale. I found out that I had three suitemates, Taylor McKessie of Salt Lake City, Kat Arujo of Mystic, Connecticut and Topanga Lawrence of Philadelphia. All three of them were extremely smart, extremely focused and extremely different. Taylor said that she was so conservative she’d probably vote republican if the party didn’t hate her just because of the color of her skin. She also said that a young republican had said she was definitely the ‘wrong type’ just because she didn’t automatically think all gay people were going to hell and that their ability to marry should be a purely legal matter that the church should have no bearing on since the constitution guaranteed a separation of church and state. Taylor was determined to become a lawyer to make as much money as humanly possible before running for congress and eventually the presidency. Taylor had started dating a guy she’d known forever near the end of her senior year and they were going to see if they could make it long distance. Topanga was her polar opposite, almost a hippie type liberal. She was determined to become a lawyer because she wanted to change the world. Topanga’s Cory was her heart and soul. They weren’t even trying to think about not being together for the rest of their lives. Kat was devoutly Roman Catholic…basically a virgin with no significant love interest that she wanted to discuss. She was very into astronomy. We were left on our own to decide who would room with whom, but we seemed pretty well matched. Ultimately it came down to us pairing the two night owls, Kat and Topanga together and Taylor and I, the early risers were in the other room.

We had been assigned to a two bedroom suite in Bingham Hall which was part of Trumbull Residential College. Our suite had the two bedrooms on either side of a common room. We’d still have to use the floor’s community rest room, which none of us were really looking forward to, but we decided to look at it as just part of the whole college experience. Taylor and Topanga pointed out that while the bedrooms came with a desk, a chair, a bureau, and an extra-long twin bed with mattresses for each of us, we were responsible for the furniture for the common room and any other furniture we needed for our bedrooms. Between Skype, email, Twitter, Facebook, texting and phone calls we got to know each other and we hammered out who would be bringing what. The hardest part of that had been Taylor, Topanga and I trying to figure out how to snag all the big ticket items without hurting Kat’s Portuguese pride. In the end we managed to convince her to rent the fridge and bring rugs, lamps and things to dress the room up. I was bringing the television and landline phone as well as the docking station and two of the arm chairs. Topanga was bringing bookshelves, two for the common room and one for each of the bedrooms, plus one to act as the TV stand. Taylor was taking the responsibility for the other two armchairs, a console table and the couch. 

The first week of July Frannie, Mr. Martinez, Papa Bent, Mr. Altman and Mr. Evans helped us move Shelby and Beth into the Fabray mansion. After they got settled, Shelby started talking about going on a vacation, all four of us. Frannie was more than a little surprised, but Shels reminded her that she was Beth’s aunt just as much as Sarah was and the four of us needed to bond. Shelby and I both agreed that we wanted to be back from our trip by the time everyone was back in Lima. After little to no discussion we decided to fly out to Anaheim and go to Disneyland. The dates were picked and we chose to divide the labor, Frannie booked us the room, Shelby booked us the flight and I got us the tickets. Friday, July nineteenth saw us flying out to the Golden state. James met us at the airport and we may have reenacted the VJ Day kiss in the middle of LAX. He was so sweet and he didn’t even have to be asked to drive us to the park resort hotel Francine had set us up in. We spent five days exploring the happiest place on earth. James was only able to join us on Sunday, but he took me out to dinner on Saturday night. We returned to his hotel and made love all night long. Together we joined Beth, Shels and Frannie for breakfast before going back to the park. That night James had dinner with us in the hotel restaurant Beth had taken a liking to him and had rechristened him Jay.

James was perfect. He even took the four of us back to the airport Tuesday morning. We flew back to Lima and the very next day Frannie I had a meeting with Attorney Patterson to discuss some financial information pertinent to our impending moves to college. The appointment was his first of the day. So I woke early and dressed well, drawing confidence and strength from the rituals of getting ready. We got there a little bit early, but were shown right in. Mr. Patterson was as kind as always.

“Are you girls having a good summer?” he asked once we were settled in the comfortable chairs across from his desk.

“Yes. We actually just got back yesterday from taking Beth to Disneyland.” I said with a small smile.

He nodded his own smile much broader and bigger than my own. “That’s wonderful. I still remember the first time my wife and I took our boys down to Orlando. When they realized where we were, they started running around and around giggling and dancing. Granted they were quite a bit older than your little one.” He took a deep breath and jumped into his first point. “Speaking of Beth, your father would like your permission to start a trust fund for her future college needs.”

Frannie and I exchanged a shocked look. “Why? I will never…ever, let him see her. Not without a bodyguard or twenty, including both Puck and Sam and all her uncles, in the room. What does he hope to accomplish with this?” I finally queried.

“I don’t think he wants to accomplish anything. He said that he saw the graduation announcements for your class and when he realized that the Puckerman boy was going to Columbia, he had to rethink his original opinion of the intelligence level of Puck and therefore of ‘his granddaughter’, and no he still doesn’t know any identifying information about her. Honestly, I think your father finally sees what he has lost and truly regrets his choices and his actions. He is trying to make some sort of amends in the only way available to him. He does know that the best he can hope for from the three of you who have his blood in your veins is at best sufferance.” While he was a lawyer, a prevaricator by trade, I could see the truth in his eyes.

Frannie prodded me. “Lucy, let him do it. You and I both know that he owes you and Beth all that and more. He’s probably only doing it because it was something he always figured he’d do for any grandchildren he had or more than likely, someone he is connected to and wants to impress thinks he should or assumes that he has. Let him. It will help Beth, that’s what matters most.”

I tried to figure out Dad’s angle. Frannie was probably right. He was doing it to show someone what a good ‘father’ and ‘grandfather’ he is. There is also the fact that it is something of a tax shelter. Finally I nodded. Frannie was right; it was the least he could do. “Very good. I will write up the paperwork. I can also make sure that he doesn’t know any of Beth’s information. He wants to start it with ten thousand dollars from his trust fund now and add up to fifteen thousand a year from his personal accounts yearly until she is done with college.”

That was pretty much the same set up that he had done for both Frannie and I, though Beth’s numbers were a little bit higher. “Okay. That sounds fine.”

He made a notation in a folder, set it aside and pulled out two other, thicker files. “Francine, we’ll do you first since there is little to no change for you. The remainder of your University of Michigan tuition has been paid for the year. Twenty five hundred from your college fund, and fifteen thousand from Russell’s personal savings account, with the academic scholarships you got, that takes care of the entire twenty one thousand for the year. Congratulations on making the Dean’s List again, by the way. I’ve also paid for the plus three hundred meal plan. Two thousand from your college fund and the remaining twenty three hundred from your father’s primary savings account.” Frannie nodded and he continued. “Your rent is still set to be automatically debited from the account Russell established for it in your junior year. The account is refilled annually. Eighteen hundred a month for the one bed, one bath, in the Varsity Student Apartments. Your lease is due for renewal next month. Did you want to look into another place?”

“No, I’m fine there. Anywhere else I’d have to pay separate utilities and that would make even a lower rent apartment more expensive.” Francine answered wisely.

He nodded and moved to the next item. “Your credit cards are set at the usual three thousand per month limit.”

Fran piped in, “Is there any way we can get that changed to four thousand the first month of school? My books and lab fees were almost seventeen hundred last semester by themselves.”

Mr. Patterson looked down. “I will try to make that change for you. However, if you need more after you’ve paid for your books, call me. I can easily pay the balance off for you and that would take you back to the three thousand limit for the rest of the month.”

“Okay. I’ll do that.” Frannie nodded.

“Your child support money is still going into your savings account at the beginning of the month as well. I’m very glad that you found an arrangement that will make sure that the house isn’t empty for four or five months at a time. I have already taken care of the arrangement we discussed when I created the lease. Half of the money Ms. Cochran sends in every month will be transferred into a high interest savings account in the name of Bethany Annalies Cochran. The other half will be set aside for home maintenance outside what Russell is already taking care of. Your mother’s eviction was finalized. As was the restraining order. She is no longer allowed within twenty five hundred feet of the home. I just need to know what you did with her things. When she is released, I will make sure that she gets them without harassing your tenant or your daughter.”

“We’ve boxed everything up and stored it in the basement for now.” Frannie answered coolly. “We’ll have them moved to a storage unit across town before she gets out. But they can stay down there for now. We have the room so there is no need to pay the extra money.”

Mr. Patterson agreed. “Very well. That’s a good way to handle it. Quinn, shall we move onto your college financial information?” I nodded and he began to tell me the same information he had shared with Frannie about her situation. “Yale has received your tuition payment. You had a responsibility of fifty-two thousand dollars after your ten thousand dollar scholarship. Twenty five thousand came from your college trust fund and the other twenty seven thousand was paid from your father’s accounts. I took the liberty of selecting the ‘anytime meal plan’ and prepaying it for the year as well as the top shelf laundry plan. Your child support is still going into your checking account every month, and as we did for Francine, your credit limit has been increased from a thousand dollars per month to three thousand. That is for your books, clothing, and any car maintenance or emergency repairs. It is paid off monthly. We’ve also moved you from being an authorized user on your father’s account to being the primary account holder…that will allow you to build a good credit rating as we pay it off monthly. The new card should be in any day now.”

“Thank you.” I hadn’t realized that it was done that way, but it did make sense.

“You are also both remaining on your father’s health, dental, and vision insurance until twenty six. Quinn, we’ve upped your life insurance to a hundred thousand dollars of coverage and changed the beneficiary to Beth with Shelby as her trustee. We did the same for Francine when she started driving back and forth to school, though Frannie, your parents are still the beneficiaries.”

“Can I change that to Lucy and Beth?” She asked concerned.

He made a notation on his paperwork. “Of course.” He pulled two envelopes from the files. “The last thing I have to tell you…your dad ordered these and asked me to give them to you.” I opened the envelope he handed me to find a Visa gift card and a printout saying that there was five thousand on the card. I looked over and Frannie had gotten the same thing. “Those are for you to have for your back to school shopping. He wanted you to know that they are refillable, so if you need more let he or I know. Especially you Quinn, since you are starting from scratch.”

“Yeah, I haven’t really gotten much. I have the lists and of course I have the things that people gave me for graduation, but I think I’ll just get what I need there.” I finally admitted. I had been looking forward to leaving Lima behind, but from the minute Shelby and Beth moved in with me, I’d lost most of my enthusiasm for the move.

But Mr. Patterson seemed to think my idea to buy most things in New Haven was the right one. “Given the fact that you have a compact car, you’re probably going to save a significant amount on shipping or transportation costs that way. If you have anything you need. Don’t hesitate to give me a call or you can email Russell. He does want you both to succeed, even if it is only to make himself look good.”

With that we said our goodbyes, Frannie took me out and forced me to at least get bedding, since I’d probably not have the energy for much shopping the day I moved in. We were supposed to get one set of bedding and some sheets. I left Macy's with two complete sets of bedding, four extra sheet sets, six pillows of different sizes and shapes…pillowcases for all the weird shaped ones…and eight blankets. I was also a lot more excited about the whole shopping for school thing. Plus, Frannie had given me that trip as her graduation gift, so I hadn’t touched a bit of the ‘back to school’ money from my father.

A week later I was forced to share Beth and Shels with Mede, Puck and Sam again. But it wasn’t a bad thing. I’d missed Mede and talking on the phone just wasn’t the same thing. She actually hooked me up with Artie to help me get a little more ready for school. I knew that he was working at the Apple Store; I’d even gone by and had lunch with him and Brittany a few times when they were both working and Santana had the day off. But I didn’t realize that he could buy me an iPad and MacBook on his discount. Then when we were at the store, Artie hooked me up further. He introduced me to his manager and after ten minutes of light flirting, the unfortunate looking guy who had graduated McKinley with Francine had given me his manager’s discount on top of Artie’s employee discount.

It seemed like I blinked and we were having to say goodbye to them again as they headed to Manhattan. Then Shelby and I were taking Beth to her first day at the Montessori school where they would start to teach her colors and numbers and letters even at her young age. Two weeks flew by and suddenly James and his family were there for all of us to make the drive to New Haven together. James had arrived back from California to find that his Cousins Tommy and Junior had gotten him a shiny, deep red Toyota Sequoia. While I hadn’t gotten much of the things on my list of needs, I had managed to get enough to overflow my poor little Bug. James was able to fit my cedar chest that contained all the bedding Frannie had gotten me that Maria Consuela, our housekeeper, had kindly washed and packed for me. She had had her son Juan make the chest for my graduation gift from her. She had been with us so long it hurt more leaving her than it did when I realized my mother’s betrayal. It was a very early morning full of tears and goodbyes that hot late August Thursday morning. I drove my car accompanied by James’ little sister Billie, whose real name was Wilhelmina though she refused to answer to it. Billie was sixteen and more than a little sheltered. However she read…a lot. Looking at the titles of the books she’d brought with her, made me wonder if her family knew what she was reading.

She and I talked, though I had to keep my guard up. Billie kept trying to get me to tell her what sex was like. Finally I looked at her and honestly said. “Sex is kind of crappy. It’s awkward and uncomfortable and more than a little humiliating. Making love…that is what you should try for, what you should wait on. I love my daughter and I am glad that I didn’t do something that I would have regretted for the rest of my life, but I really wish that my first time with James had been my first time all together. No woman ever regrets waiting…a lot of them regret rushing into something they either weren’t ready for or didn’t really want to do.”

She looked very thoughtful. “The books all make it seem so awesome.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know…I’ve never really been into reading the same kind of stuff you’re reading. I can only talk from my own personal experience and from what all my friends say. It’s better with feelings.”

I let her think on my words for a while. We stopped in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania and had lunch at Sarina’s Pizza and Restaurant. The choice was made between several restaurants almost equal distant between Lima and New Haven. The pizza was totally awesome. The toppings were plentiful and the cheese thick. We were so full that we all had to go and take a walk before we were comfortable enough to gas up my car, James’ Sequoia and Mrs. Kay’s Highlander. Kay’s brother, James’ Uncle Dex, had ridden down with us to help with the heavy lifting and to ride back with Ms. Kay, Billie and Marie; James older sister…the care package sender...so they wouldn’t be alone on the return trip. When we got to New Haven it was already eight in the evening so we checked into the Courtyard Marriot near the school. Ms. Kay, Marie, Billie and I shared one room while James and Dexter Washington shared the other.

Move in started at seven. James and I had not ended up in the same residential college; I was in Trumbull, but he was in Calhoun. However, both of those colleges housed their freshmen in Bingham Hall. James’ room was on the fourth floor in the long wing of the L shaped building. My room was on the seventh floor of the tower. Thankfully the building, though old, had been modernized and renovated and had an elevator. It took us less than no time to bring in the things that I’d brought with me. Then we concentrated on getting in all of James’ things. Two hours later, showered and cleaned up, we drove to a nearby Target so that I could find the things I had to buy for my room. Granted James had plenty of things that he had to get for his room too, so I didn’t feel very bad. The second unloading was a lot harder than the first. Then we had to put together the things we’d bought. That was definitely an educational experience. Fortunately once they were finished putting everything together in their fourth floor room, his roommates, all five of them were ready to help Taylor, Topanga and I with putting together all the furniture the three of us had purchased.

Once everything was unpacked, the beds made, the electronics hooked up, the four of us experienced the joys of the communal bathroom. Kat had arrived around five. She’d literally worked at the pizzeria where she was employed until the last second before she had to leave to get to school and unload before the cut off. Taylor was a little surprised that I didn’t have any questions about her night time rituals. I pulled out my iPad and showed her my family. “My soul sister and Mama Dani have taught me all about making sure that hair is put away and skin is fully moisturized before bed. I know that you’re probably rocking a natural under what is a very fierce weave. You don’t have to worry about being the information source on all of blackness for me. Mama Dani, MeDe, Kev and Dev and Papa Benton…they have taught me well. Granted, if you want to teach me about your black experience…cause I know that no black person has the exact same experience as any other one.”

Taylor smirked a little. “You don’t say African American…”

I shook my head. “No, that is a very divisive term. No one calls me a Caucasian American...so why on earth would I call you an African American? Mama Dani says that that term only applies to people who were born in Africa and have become naturalized Americans.” I chuckled. “Let me come out the side of my neck with the term ‘African American’ and MeDe would drive all the way down from Manhattan just to smack me.”

“You scared of your soul sister?” Taylor asked with a teasing smile.

I chuckled. “Yes and no. Mercedes sees me and that is scary. Mama Dani is...well...she is a black mom who raised two amazing men and one hell of a woman. Neither of them would ever hurt me, but they see down to the very core of me.” I admitted simply. “They see me and they are always willing to call me out when I try to hide.” Something about Taylor reminded me of Mercedes and her mother…more than the color of their skin. All three women shared a very similar strength of spirit and will.

We finished our nightly rituals and got into our freshly made beds. The next morning, we got up and dressed and met the guys and walked to breakfast. Taylor, Topanga and I all had boyfriends, so James’ roommates all lavished Kat with their attention. The nine of us got together and helped the guys finish unpacking. Then we headed back up to the girls’ rooms and the guys helped us rearrange and decorate. Once we were all satisfied, we took a walk around campus familiarizing ourselves with the layout and everything. Then I mentioned that I hadn’t done much in the way of shopping, so we decided to hit the mall. We called James’ family and his roommates Harrison and Brad’s families also met us at the mall as well.

I forced myself to keep to my needs. I’d brought exactly one towel set, my bedding, some clothing and my technology with me. I had a blast shopping for the other things I needed. I got five more sets of towels, washcloths, hand towels, towels and bathsheets. I got several new pairs of shower shoes and a proper bath caddy. All my toiletries, school supplies and things I hadn’t even considered like surge protectors, storage containers and extra flash drives, and a real backpack, rather than the cute one I’d carried in high school were all quickly purchased. Taylor decided that we needed a coffee maker and went for the Keurig so that we could all have what we wanted whatever our mood. Topanga saw a Magic Bullet blender set that she wanted so we could make smoothies or milk shakes. Even Kat found a few things that she bought. The guys all found something that they hadn’t brought with them. All nine of us did a head slap when we realized that we’d forgotten one of the most quintessential parts of the whole dorm living experience. “Dude, we forgot to get a dry erase board.” 

Standing there in the aisle with the boards, we quickly decided to get a big one for the outside of the hall door and then little ones for the interior doors. We also got a big mirror for the inside of the door to the hall. Then we hit a Whole Foods Market for snacks and drinks. Stocked our little fridge and freezer and we got K-cups, coffee cups and mugs…and cookies. By the time we made it back to the dorm, the back of the Sequoia was packed and I was down to about fifteen hundred bucks left on my gift card. We finally felt like the common room was finished. Sunday afternoon was spent saying good bye to the families who’d come with us. Sunday evening after dinner we all grabbed our tablets or iPads and looked up the course catalog to prepare for our meetings the next day. Monday began our advising appointments.

We had a varied and extensive group of majors. I was majoring in economics and global affairs. James’ majors were computer science and environmental engineering with a minor in political science. Topanga had elected to major in ethics, politics and economics, while Taylor was also majoring in global affairs and minoring in psychology. Kat was majoring in astronomy and physics and minoring in astrophysics. I asked her what the difference was and her explanation showed me exactly why I wasn’t considering classes in either of those fields. Harrison was an intriguing person. He was six two, whipcord thin, rich as Croesus and gayer than Liberace. His skin was the color of a perfectly done caramel macchiato, and his hair was a mass of corkscrew curls. He was a very determined art history and management double major. Harrison’s parents were very accepting of his sexuality. But then again they were from California. His dad was a film producer and his mom was a model turned photographer. Brad was the exact opposite. Blonde haired and blue eyed, he was short and stocky…built as hell, but only a little taller than Kat, who was fairly tall for a girl. He was majoring in molecular biophysics and biochemistry and minoring in evolutionary biology. Looking at him, one would have thought that he’d be the next Tom Cruise, but instead he was planning on being a research scientist and hoped to be the one to find a cure for AIDS. He was also the youngest of us. Brad was only sixteen. Those two shared James’ bedroom and it was hilarious to see them all in there together.

The other trio in that suite were Max, Victor and Drew. Max was a tiny little Laotian and he had the hardest major combination of all of us. Physics, chemical engineering and molecular, cellular and developmental biology, when he told us that, Drew was taking a drink of water…the spit take was hilarious. Where most of the guys were very fit, Drew just wasn’t. He was a computer engineering and sciences major that looked like what a programmer/gamer/computer nerd looked like in most people’s imagination. He wasn’t massively overweight, but he was carrying about fifty pounds heavier than he needed to be. But with his black hair, lighter olive complexion and gorgeous green eyes…he really had hottie potential. Victor...he bothered me. He was nondescript. Brown hair, brown eyes, barely olive skin, average height, average build, he was just completely forgettable. His major, however, wasn’t. Victor was majoring in linguistics and Russian and Eastern European studies. I couldn’t pinpoint why he was the only one of James’ roommates that seemed to unnerve me, but he definitely did just irritate me.

We hammered out three preliminary schedules for each of us and took them with us to meet with our advisors. My advisor was Dr. Nigel Carrington; he had a Ph.D. in Macroeconomics and International Relations. We talked through making sure that I fulfilled the requirements of taking science classes as well as building the skills I would need for law school by taking courses in writing and literature. By the end of the hour, I had my schedule in hand. Unfortunately given where everyone’s advisory appointments were and when they were scheduled, I was walking the campus alone. Of course there were sophomores and upperclassmen moving in. There was a large organization fair…the campus was just buzzing. It would have been great to have someone to talk to about it. Just as that thought was flitting through my mind, James’ came up on my right and Taylor joined me on the left. The three of us walked to the bookstore together and I realized that I was taking my first steps into the future, and I rather liked the company.


	14. Sometimes Dreams Come True (Jessie J)

Sometimes Dreams Come True (Jessie J)  
Saul PoV

Summer was nearing its end. Twelve months before, I was still shaking my head in surprise every time I got an email or phone call from my nephew telling me that he was still involved with his Abdonis and Chocolate Goddess. Every time we talked he seemed to be finding his way back to his Mayzer side and leaving his father’s bad habits behind him. Nine months before, I was finding myself wondering if the Greeks didn’t get Eros and Zeus confused. Love didn’t hit me like a puny arrow…it was like a bolt from the blue. Six months before, I was tricking that love into committing herself to me for the rest of our days. Three months before, Mills and I were starting to look at buying a house for ourselves and maybe our future children. It still shocked me whenever I thought about how little time had really passed. The week before the kids finally made it down to the city, Mills and I had cleared our calendars because that was the original date for the move. “Want to go down to Atlantic City?” I asked her on a whim that Friday evening. “It’s been at least three or four years since I’ve been to the Borgata.”

She rolled over onto her stomach…her beautiful bare shoulder compelling me to kiss it. “Noah’s tuition is taken care of. I thought Trudy was going to pee herself when your mom gave her that cashier’s check for ninety percent of the full cost of her house. You aren’t greedy, you never go to gamble without a reason…What are you wanting to win this time?”

I knelt up on the bed, straddling my wife’s amazingly sexy ass and pulled the covers down so I could press kisses to her spine. “I would love to win enough for a fifty to sixty percent down payment on that new build in that development in Jericho. You loved the model home. It’s less than an hour from Mom and the college-ers. The schools are nationally ranked. We could have Cede, Dani and Kurt help us with designing the house…or hell, you don’t do too badly at the tables, you just have no patience. Maybe I win us enough for the down payment, and you win us enough to get a decorator.” I smirked against the small of her back.

“We…ooh…what would we need with five bedrooms?” she whimpered as I started to suckle the pleasure point at the top of the crack of her ass.

I slid my tongue along her ass before answering. “Two or three kids, guest room, home office…whatever we want.”

She arched into my mouth. “Little soon for kids…we have plenty of time.”

I nodded, teasing her by licking the spot where her ass and thigh met. “We have plenty of time to have kids. We had this same conversation in Chicago, but ended up waiting too long. We missed out on one great, brand new build opportunity. We have the time and a clear calendar.” I gripped her hips and pulled her up so that I could lick her dripping pussy. It had only been about an hour since I’d been inside her last. I could still taste my cum mingled with hers, though as she got wetter and wetter, the me part of the cocktail faded more and more. “Besides, it feels like it’s right. I want us to have the chance to build our own memories in our house before it gets taken over by our spawn.” 

“Oh God, Saul…” she hissed before her moan slid out as I slipped three fingers into her hot, wet pussy. “Spawn? Really?”

“You missed Sarah as a baby…she could projectile vomit like Linda Blair in The Exorcist…Spawn was appropriate. However, this is not appropriate ‘my sexy wife is naked and wet and I’m hard from just the taste of her’ conversation. So…are we going to drive down to Atlantic City tomorrow?” I growled tracing the curve of her inner thigh with my teeth.

Mills growled back. “Suck my pussy or get out of my way so I can get off my damn self.”

Oh that just wouldn’t do. I pulled back and flipped her onto her back. My lips took hers, the kiss was fierce and strong and deep. As was my first stroke into her grasping, sucking heat. My hips pistoned hard and fast filling and retreating until I felt her scream with her entire body. Usually when we were in Mills' bed, we stayed to slow sensual lovemaking. She mewed and moaned, she whimpered and sighed. But out of kindness and consideration of her neighbors and the thin walls, I didn’t fuck my wife in her bed…I didn’t make her scream and cry. Until I did. Her screams of pleasure, of climax of bliss echoed through the room. Her begging carried to her neighbors beside, above and below. Only when she was too spent to do more than mew and whine did I finally let myself cum flooding her with my cum once again.

The next morning we rented a car and drove down to Atlantic City. On the way down, I got us a room at the Borgata. We decided to make it a competition. Mills would hit the blackjack tables and I would take poker. The first one to win a hundred thousand got to pick the floor plan. Still not sure how she beat me, but she decided the floor plan. I won the next few rounds of our game, so I got to have my way on the master suite color, the exterior of the house and flooring throughout. By the time we left AC Sunday afternoon, we had enough to pay the taxes on our win, do a seventy percent down payment and there was enough money left over that we could hire a decorator if we so desired. We’d almost missed our checkout time. Mills had lost our last wager and while she was fulfilling her part of the bet…blowing my mind…she did so by giving me a long, slow blow job with her perfect lips and teasing tongue. By the time she finally allowed me to flood her beautiful mouth, it was twenty minutes to eleven and we had to rush and race like two kids the morning after prom.

The family arrived that Monday, but we were still able to slip away for a couple of hours that afternoon to get the paperwork started for our house. It was a pretty big deal, but neither Mills nor I wanted to share the news that early in the process. Besides, things were about the kids that week. I had to work Monday and Tuesday so that I could be available the rest of the week, so I didn’t find out about Noah’s amazing surprise until after the fact. Mills popped up at my offices in the MetLife building to surprise me for lunch. We walked the block or two to The Capital Grille. As soon as we were seated, Mills looked at me and sighed. “Noah is the best kid I’ve ever known.” She sighed before continuing, “But he just really, really fucked with my head and our plans and he doesn’t even know it.” she groaned before sharing with me the events of the morning.

“So…which problem did he cause? Seeing all the pretty wedding dresses made you wish for an actual wedding? Or did seeing how wonderful some kids turn out makes you not want to wait as long to have one of our own?” Mills threw me a look that basically asked if I was reading her mind. “No, I wasn’t reading your mind. But when you were telling me about our amazing, sweet, kind of crazy nephew… those were the thoughts that ran through my head. Wondering how beautiful you’d look walking down the aisle towards me wearing some innocently sexy dress that you’ll always think you paid too much for even as you hope and pray that we’ll have a little girl who will want to wear it one day. Which lead to me thinking about a beautiful little girl all ours and all grown up…wondering if you’d even show her the dress or cherish the experience of helping her to find one that was exactly her.”

Mills sighed again, but she couldn’t say anything as our waiter arrived. She ordered the spinach salad with warm bacon dressing and in a move I was used to, but it seemed to bother the waiter a little, she ordered me the field greens, tomatoes and fresh herbs salad with the accompanying parmesan vinaigrette on the side. “Oh, and we can go ahead and order the entrée, I’ll have the sesame seared tuna with gingered rice and he will have the seared citrus glazed salmon served over haricots verts, fresh asparagus and roasted cippolini onions.”

The waiter looked over at me like he was verifying the order. My eyes met his daring him to gainsay my wife as if she didn’t know me well enough to order for me. He quickly smiled at Mills and disappeared to place the order. Turning to Mills I offered her a compromise that she and I could both live with. “Look this next week or so is going to be hectic. Why don’t we each decide if we want the whole wedding thing or if it was just a visceral reaction to a pretty emotional, really beautiful gesture? Same deal with the decision of whether we really want to pull up our baby time table.”

I wasn’t sure that I liked the look on Mills face. I was pretty sure that I had just majorly misstepped. She was giving me that ‘I’m a grown damn woman’ look. The one where her jaw got tight and her lips got the slightest bit of a pull at the corners. “So you really think that I need a cooling off period…because I want to buy a wedding dress? Did you give yourself time to think about it before you manipulated me into marrying you in the first place?”

I felt my own hackles rise. It was stupid. I knew it but the words flew out of my mouth. “I didn’t manipulate you. I gave you permission to do what you really wanted to do in the first place.” Oh shit. Maybe she would let me have a last meal before she killed me…that salmon she had ordered for me sounded really good.

Her face went into a look that really made my heart melt and my testicles draw up. In my head I called it the patented Abby Mills ‘if I didn’t love you, they would never find your body’ look. Then even more worryingly, she smirked. “Maybe you’re right…maybe you did just give me permission to do what I wanted to do…after all you’re very sexy, well endowed, amazingly good in bed and you have a good job. What more could a woman want?”

“You sounded very Francesca Jarrard like just then.” I said trying to go for calm rather than angry.

“We’ve been friends for a decade…maybe we’re just more alike than you realized.” Now she was scaring me. “Maybe really I let you think it was all your idea. After all I saw how Fran’s method of hooking you had crashed and burned. Perhaps I just decided to try a different approach.”

My own eyes narrowed. “I know you too well to believe that for an instant.”

“You must not know me as well as you think if you don’t think I’d already thought about whether or not I was just caught up in the moment. I fucking hate dresses. Prom gowns, wedding dresses…they are like dresses with ‘roid rage. But then I saw this dress…it was so beautiful. The whitest white I’ve ever seen, satin with that beady shiny stuff over the bust and on one hip, draping or whatever and all I could see was me in that damn dress, some killer heels and making my way to you. And I felt so fucking stupid, because we’re already married and we don’t need that whole dog and pony show…but I was so fucking jealous as Becah was trying on all those wrong dresses because I knew I’d seen my perfect dress. I even managed to get one of the associates to tell me the designer…Maggie Sottero…the design is called Adeline Marie. I do not want to be that girl, Saul. I have spent a very large portion of my life making sure I wasn’t that girl…but here I am being that girl. I’m having a really hard time with this, and your answer is to sleep on it and I’ll change my mind.”

I reached over and took her hand letting my thumb play with her ring. “I’m sorry. I should have realized that it was really bothering you. I know how you feel about being in a dress. When you said that you were considering it then I shouldn’t have downplayed the depth of your feelings. But Grace Abigail Mills-Mayzer…I can’t actually read your mind. If you were offended by the fact that I didn’t give it the credence you wanted me to, you should have just said that. Making me into the bad guy for loving and wanting to be with you enough to make sure that we were man and wife as soon as possible, that was kind of hurtful.”

She had the grace to look embarrassed. “I went on the defensive. Hurt you rather than admitting how you’d hurt me. Kind of a knee jerk reaction.”

I nodded. “I wasn’t any better. But we’re grownup. We have to be better about how we fight. I refuse to cause real harm to our marriage because we let anger make us say things we can’t take back.” The waiter interrupted to set down our salads. As soon as he left I returned to the original matter. “So, what kind of wedding would you want? Small and intimate, big and loud…”

“Even if we just invite family and friends, it will be big and loud.” Mills said with a grin.

“I’ll give you that. I mean…if I just think about the number of bridesmaids you’ll probably have to have. Francesca, Maddie, the ‘oh so intriguing’ Nadia…for your wedding gift to me…I think you should let me watch the two of you kiss. But anyway.” I rushed on before she could thump me. “Becah, maybe Tessa and Cede…depending on when we do it Gabby and Dani too. That’s like eight women. Granted some of the groomsmen will be easy. Benton, Sander, George, Neil, Noah, Sam, so I’d need two unmarried guys to have escort Maddie and Nadia. I know that it probably wouldn’t be a setup with Nadia, just saving the poor schmuck from a pissed off wife or girlfriend.”

Mills chuckled. “At least there wouldn’t be any problem getting the entertainment. As long as we invite all of Puck, MeDe and Sam’s roommates and friends and rent a sound system…the crowd will be able to dance for hours.”

I shrugged thoughtfully. “We could start planning. Figure out what we would want. Hell, first thing we have to do is figure out what we need to figure out.”

Mills eyes lit up. “There is cake…we get to go and taste lots and lots of cake.”

I looked down and realized that I had finished my salad without realizing it. I put the salad plate to the side and reached out and grabbed my wife’s hands. “So, my darling…my beautiful, sexy, amazingly wonderful wife…shall we have a lavish and expensive wedding that will make your bestie drool with envy?”

“My heart…my handsome, sexy, amazingly awesome husband…we’re building a house…and probably buying cars. Shall we have a beautiful and deceptively inexpensive wedding that will fool my even my best friend into drooling with envy?” She countered.

“With the amazing dress and some fantastic cake.” I agreed as the waiter appeared with our entrees. The rest of lunch was spent teasing and soothing the raw edges from our earlier argument. As we walked to the entrance for the train, I gave her a kiss like I was headed off to the war. We headed to Jericho and made our hurriedly made appointment at Beechwood Homes Organization. We met with a very interesting young woman named Wellesley -who was one of the most annoying people I had ever had to deal with- and the home office for the investment management group where I worked was in London. My direct supervisor was based over there and still referred to us as ‘the colonies’. That company did their selection process quite differently than the company that Mom and the kids were getting their houses through. They had a website that we would ultimately log in to and make our selections there. We would have the chance to do thing in stages, or all at once. Then changes could be made until that particular stage locked down. Floor plan and lot selection were the only decisions we had to make that same day.

We decided on a corner lot, slightly deeper within the subdivision. It would be close enough to the front so that when we had kids we could walk them to the bus stop easily. But it would hopefully be deep enough in the complex to decrease the chances of random break-ins. Mills selected a floor plan very similar to the model home. The house would have two floors and a basement. The top floor would have four nice sized bedrooms, each with a walk in closet and ensuite bathroom. The entry floor would hold a two story foyer, den, master suite, laundry room, open concept eat in kitchen, dining, and great room, a two car garage and a powder room. The basement level had a media area, a rec room area complete with bar, a bedroom with a bathroom and walk in closet that we would use as our home office. It also had a mechanical room that was like twice as big as it really needed to be, so we took some square footage from it to increase the size of the home office. Wellesley looked completely annoyed when we decided that we didn’t want two separate offices because we actually liked spending time with each other. Hell, I was still trying to figure out how to sneak her into my work office so I could christen my desk. We’d taken care of hers within the first week we’d been married.

We had dinner on the way home from that appointment, rather than going out with the family. As much as we loved them, we really wanted to get home as quickly as we could. We made love so much that night that we overslept our alarm. Mills was able to go and tour the house with the family, I was stuck at work. She called me and told me to contact Rangeman and see if we could get them to work with our builder and have a security system installed the way it had been done in the kids and apparently in Mom’s house. She had been very, very impressed with their system. We all had dinner together but we called it an early night. The next morning, we met the movers and they took all the graduation, Christmas and birthday gifts of appliances, furniture and decorative pieces that the kids had received and loaded them into their truck. While the movers drove, we took the train. Suffice it to say we got there well before the movers. By three the move-in was done, and we started helping the kids figure out what they needed to put on their list of things still needed.

There wasn’t a family dinner that night because we all split up to get the shopping done. The next morning we went over really early and started unpacking, the washers and dryers got delivered and put into use almost as soon as the delivery men left and George made sure that the hooks were done right. Then he went around and made sure that all the furniture was well assembled. In the ‘Commune/Klaine’ unit, we all took our areas. I handled the study, while Mills, Becah and Tessa handled the family and powder rooms. Cede, Gabby and Danica took the kitchen and pantry. Kurt handled the second floor guest room and he and Blaine did their suite. Puck, Finn and Sam did their gym and the guest bathroom. Mom, Carole, Stacey and Sarah took care of washing all the linens and making the beds. Burt installed a whole house full of curtain hardware with the help of whoever popped up and then he and George went all in on those. Burt and George were pretty much the only ones to work on both sides of the house. The Abrams, Lopezes and Pierces had started at the top floor and all worked together until they finished everything.

Unfortunately Burt, Carole and Finn had to leave that day. Finn was due at Ohio State that same weekend. After they left for the airport the rest of us took the kids grocery shopping and helped them put away their groceries before we all went out to dinner. We let the kids go home without parental supervision. Gabby, Sander, George, Tessa and Triple S all had to head back the next day, because the kids school started on that Tuesday. Thankfully in all the shopping for the college bound kids, the rest of them had gotten everything they needed at the same time so when they went back home they could just rest and get ready for the first day of school. The rest of the week flew by. Mills started showing the empty unit under the LAP half of the house to prospective renters. Ryan Atwood arrived with his family and moved into the unit under Puck and his friends. He’d pulled Mills aside and asked her if she could help him find a roommate so his parents would be relieved of some of the money they were spending on him. He seemed like a good kid who’d been dealt a few seriously crappy hands in his life. Becah, Benton, the Abrams, the Lopezes and the Pierces flew home that Sunday evening after the parent orientation activities at NYU and Columbia. By the time they left, my amazing wife had found two tenants for the empty apartment and narrowed Ryan’s choice of roommates down to three students, two guys from NYU and a girl from NYADA. Things were starting to find their way to the new normal.

Again Mills and I chose to keep our news to ourselves for a while. It was strange how we wanted to just hold it in our hearts just for a little while longer. After Mills was asleep, I went back over everything in my mind. Between Mills and myself, we’d won enough in our weekend trip to Atlantic City to finance the house with a seventy-five percent down payment. However, if we put seventy percent down instead, we’d have seventy thousand to put towards a wedding. But knowing my wife, we’d set our budget at fifty and leave the rest for a cushion. Granted we still had the money we’d won during our Vegas trip as well. I had invested that whole amount while we decided on what we wanted to do about buying a house. I’d only pulled out twelve thousand to help Mom and Becah pay Puck’s balance after all his scholarships. I’m surprised that Mills hadn’t pointed that out before we went to AC. Probably she was too busy trying to get my tongue on her clit to think things through. To be honest, I didn’t really need to go to Vegas or Atlantic City to get the house or really even to pay Puck’s schooling. I was a business operations manager at Barclays US. I was very well paid. I could have easily financed the house alone, not even counting the very respectable brokerage fees Mills brought in.

It had just become something I did for big expenditures. It started when I got my first student loans total. I wasn’t comfortable with having large amounts of debt. I also wasn’t comfortable with my sister having them either. Neither was Mom. For Becah’s graduation gift when she graduated with her nursing BS from University of Michigan, Mom paid off her student loans. Despite having the family’s ability with numbers, unfortunately, Becah couldn’t gamble. She had absolutely no ‘poker’ face. It was horrible to watch. Sometimes we would go behind her back and pay her mortgage. She had to know we did it. She’d paid off a twenty year mortgage in ten years. During the divorce there was a time when she had been forced by circumstances…and sheer stubbornness…to miss a few payments. Or so she’d thought. By that point she was usually three or four payments ahead, depending on what Mom and I had going on in our lives. She probably could have gotten mad. It wouldn’t have done her any good. I’d have packed them all up and moved them back to New York before I let her have to live paycheck to paycheck or end up with the kids on the streets.

I came back to my current financial analysis. I had a high yield savings bond that was fully matured. It would probably be best to cash that out and buy another. That hundred thousand would be perfect for our wedding budget and to get us both cars to commute into the city. So that is what we would do, put the entire proceeds of the AC trip towards the house, I’ve already paid the government their portion…thank Yeshiva that casinos are willing to take taxes out of your winnings before they hand them over. Even with the forms you have to fill out, it is still so much easier.

As I reached the end of that line of thought, I turned over and pulled Mills to me. We’d only know each other eight or nine months, but the thought of going any further through life without her by my side was an anathema to me. She was my present. She was my partner…conceivably in crime, knowing us. She was going to be the mother of my future children. I was so glad that she had changed her mind on the whole wedding thing all on her own. I really wanted the world to see the treasure that I had found. I wondered how soon she would consider kids. There were times that the thought still scared me stupid, but I should have gotten over that in two years…three tops…definitely less than the five we’d originally agreed to wait. The thought of watching her sexy little body swell with my child compelled me to wake her for some further lovemaking. I looked into her sleepy brown eyes and saw our future. It was a beautiful sight.


	15. Mirror (Lil Wayne feat. Bruno Mars) & Mirror (NeYo)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANKS to everyone who has taken the time to review any or, in some cases, all of the stories in this series. Your encouragement helps more than you know. Take a moment and let me know what you enjoyed most about the update. Extra special Thanks to my serial reviews, Hgbul1, Isis Aurora Tomoe, Princess976, Rainbowbrite006, Morgansbabygirl and many others, and quite a few I haven’t heard from in a while. I hope that you are all doing well.

CHAPTER 12  
Mirror (Lil Wayne feat. Bruno Mars)  
Kurt PoV

The move to the city that never sleeps went extremely well. Primarily because most of the people who worked on the plans all have a rather prominent touch of situational OCD. That week between moving and the beginning of orientation for both NYU and Columbia was spent getting settled and putting personal touches on our home. Mercedes and I, along with our significant others and roommates -and whichever of the remaining family members were available or who wanted to come with-stayed busy trolling flea markets and lower end antique stores for finishing pieces. Somehow both my Diva bestie and my own fabulous self had forgotten all about mirrors for our bedrooms. To be quite frank, we actually forgot mirrors of any sort other than those that were above the sinks and vanities in the bathrooms. Blaine also forgot to tell me that his bow ties needed a specific type of tie rack and his collection of neckwear was a bit more than the drawer in his closet system that had been allotted for ties could handle.

Then, upon completing the set up of the fitness room, Sam realized that the room needed some way to keep towels and shed clothing off the floor. Puck raised the point that the room would greatly benefit from having a couple of the automatic air fresheners as well. Monday was spent saying goodbye to Cedes, Sam and Puck’s siblings and the Evans and Mr. Altman. It was also spent making the ‘oh so wonderful’ discoveries of the things we’d missed. That Tuesday, all eight of us made our way to the nearby Target. Five of us actually made it to Target quickly and together. Since we were doing some pretty heavy shopping, we’d taken both Mercedes’ Tahoe and Santana’s ‘brand new to her’ Cayenne. When Santana had realized that her father was leaving the Porsche with her, that he had even gone so far as to transfer the title into her name, Satan had actually cried…in front of people. Satan, Artie and Brittany were supposed to be right behind us. But when we parked, the other threesome was nowhere to be seen.

Picking up the towel racks was easy, we just grabbed two, 11-Dowel, wooden dowel drying racks and moved onto the air freshener aisle. I was sure that we were providing anyone who saw us with large amounts of hilarious entertainment as we debated the styles and colors available for the automatic air freshener apparatuses. But that was nothing compared to the sight we had to have made as we weighed the pros and cons of each of the individual scents available. We sprayed and sniffed each individual scent, some were immediate nos…a few were immediate hell to the nos. while we were trying to find a scent, Blaine pointed out that we probably wanted to have them in the bathrooms and hidden throughout the living, dining and family rooms too. For some reason, it was actually easier to pick the ambient fragrances for the public areas and the bathrooms, a nice light scent called Gulf Island-White Sands and Sea Shores, than it was to find the one for the gym. Finally Sam, Noah, and Blaine…the three who probably use the room most often picked the lavender and chamomile freshener and we moved on.

Of course we didn’t get very far before we doubled back to get air fresheners for our personal spaces as well. Mercedes, Puck and Sam took little to no time in choosing one fragrance for their entire suite. They decided to get three decorative units and enough of the Channel Islands-Fresh Coastal Waters and Silver Lotus spray to carry them for at least a few months. Blaine and I only needed two, but we were extremely picky. Most of the smells were either too beachy, too floral, or made Blaine hungry. Finally we elected to go with Snuggle-Fresh Linen for the bedroom and Yosemite-Wild Strawberry and Mountain Rain for our bathroom. We’d completed our air freshener search, picked up all the necessary light bulbs and were in the process of discussing the benefits of having dedicated gym towels. Mercedes and I had gotten Puck, Sam and Blaine to agree to the expediency and good sense of having them and we were in the process of debating the best color and size to get when Satan, Brittany and Artie finally joined us. They settled the argument very quickly with a very logical reasoning from Santana. “Get white hand and regular sized towels for the gym and rehearsal room…that way if Britts, Richie Bitch, me or Puck fuck up and put in too much Clorox, it won’t matter.”

She did have a very valid point as well as the most likely culprits. Unfortunately when she grabbed the towels to put two sets of six of each kind, she noticed the air freshener which necessitated a return to the aisle and more arguments as to style and scent. Then we ended up in the electronics section for batteries. We got a major router that would allow us to have Wi-Fi on the second and third floors as well as the first. Blaine, Sam and Puck decided that since we’d managed to keep the family rooms free of game systems, they were begging for a blue ray, which the led to the picking of movies. Which led to the picking of the snacks we’d neglected to think about when stocking the kitchen. We went to Target for just two things and left several hundred dollars poorer. Even Sam, bless his frugal heart, had been dragged into the madness.

We put the bags and boxes into the back of Santana’s SUV and made our way to an antique mall that Ruth Mayzer had told us about. It was there that we found a treasure trove of antique wooden decorative pieces including an eighteenth century ‘gold leaf’ mirror that was perfect in the living room on the wall behind the sofa. Brittany found a truly gorgeous frame. It was large and would make even the world’s tackiest lithograph look like a work of art. A few stalls down, Mercedes found a simply divine antique cherry wood cheval mirror. It was unwarped and in almost perfect condition, so we acknowledged that the chances that it would qualify as an actual antiquity were slim but for Mercedes the important part was that it was awe-inspiringly beautiful.

In the same shoppe, Blaine discovered a lovely divan. It was not overstuffed or overly ornate, so I was actually wondering if it may have been a legitimate antique. Blaine and I agreed that it would be a gorgeous addition to our bedroom. He even shelled out to have it cleaned, updated with a soft teal and gray fabric I selected from the vendor’s portfolio, and delivered to our house. For our room, we found a five and a half foot tall espresso and antique brass cheval mirror with masculine lines and a small catch all shelf under the mirror itself. We also found a great stall that sold ‘modern’ antiques, also known as reproductions. By the time we’d left, we’d filled our most immediate needs and exhausted the budget we’d set for the excursion.

When we got home, Blaine, Puck, Sam and I carried all our new finds to the backyard while Mercedes, Santana and Brittany ran into the house and got the Amish Wood Milk and the Windex. Mercedes and I carefully cleaned all our new treasures, taking our time, while our roommates lugged in our other purchases. Once they were cleaned, we let the others take them in while we directed them where we wanted them. Once everything was cleaned and in place, I made dinner with the help of my sous chef, Madam Mercedes. We threw together some pan seared chicken breasts with shallots, some gnocchi with a chicken stock and cream reduction and stir fry veggies. Cede threw together some brownies and Brittany and Sam set the table.

This was the first of our dinners that we’d not shared with family members. Since those who were still in the city were kind of waiting around for orientation and most of them had never been to Manhattan before, they were taking the week for sightseeing. They were all flying out the Wednesday or Thursday before Labor Day after they finished the parent orientation events at Columbia and NYU. At dinner that Tuesday night, the eight of us talked about how kind of weird it was that soon we’d be pretty much alone in the big city. “Alright…we’ve gotta do something major before classes start. Kurt’s classes begin a week from tomorrow and our orientations start Sunday, so we basically only have the rest of this week.”

“We could do a Central Park bike tour.” Blaine suggested then realized that that would exclude one of us. “Or you know a bus tour of Manhattan sights.”

“We could go to a museum. The Museum of Modern Art is supposed to be amazing…” Sam pointed out.

“Actually,” Puck said with a smile at his lover, “I could get behind doing one of those tours. Not a bus one though…those buses are gross. There is the one where you cruise all around Manhattan on a ship or boat or whatever.”

“Ooh…” Brittany chimed in. “I think I’d like to do that.”

Artie whipped out his smart phone and looked it up. “It’s a two and a half hour tour. We could do it and then do the Museum of Modern Art or Natural History or one of the other multitudes of museums available in this huge ass city.”

Santana was looking over his shoulder. “Its forty bones a head. If we do that and the museum, plus having lunch out and about, we’re gonna have to be good little boys and girls for at least a couple of weeks. We still have to buy books and shit.”

I was a little surprised by Santana Lopez being the fiscally responsible one, but I had a thought. “Most of those tours give group rates. If the parents aren’t doing anything, maybe we can get enough of them together to make it cheaper.”

“We’ll need at least fifteen people…the tickets will be six bucks cheaper then.” Santana said still reading Artie’s phone.

Sam and Artie took charge of clearing the table as the rest of us either contacted our parents and lobbied for the excursion the next day, or in my case, called just to check in and make sure that everything was going well. After we exchanged the usual health and wellness reports, Carole said that she was glad I called. They hadn’t heard from Finn since they came home after they took him, Lauren and his roommate Vince out to dinner the Sunday they had taken them to school. Then she laughed merrily when I reminded her that it had only been two days. “Feels like months. I’m not used to not coming home to my boys.” She said with an audible tear. “But I’m very proud of you guys. Now…get off the phone with a silly old lady and enjoy these last few days before your orientation starts. You can call back after you guys go and see Aladdin…I want to hear all about it.” We said our goodbyes and I returned my attentions to the happenings at our dinner table.

Mercedes spoke up. “Okay, the eight of us, the two Andersons, The four Jones, the two Lopezes and one each of the Abrams and Pierces,” Artie and Brittany’s dads hadn’t been able to stay the entire time. They had flown back earlier that morning. “That gives us eighteen people, sixteen adults and two babies. We make the discount, and best of all…all the parents say that they have us. They want us to save our money for after they go home. Plus too, they all seemed to be happy to do something non-school related with us now since they are leaving right after their orientation stuff ends on the twenty seventh.”

We celebrated that with double fudge brownies and ice cream before heading up to our personal spaces to chill for the rest of the evening. Blaine and I decided that we’d finally run a bath and soak to unwind. I was so thankful that the tub I’d selected for our bathroom was an air bubble jetted tub. That meant Bubblebaths…we’d found a great eucalyptus and spearmint bath line that smelled nicely masculine, but bubbled deliciously. They even had Epsom salts in the same scent…a must according to NYADAs recommended supply list. We added some to the bath that night. Antique mirrors were almost by definition heavy as hell. As we soaked, we took turns rubbing away any soreness caused by all the lifting and carrying we’d done that day.

“Have I told you how glad I am that you decided to test out and graduate early?” I asked into the quiet of the room as Blaine was massaging my arms.

He chuckled. “I’m really glad too. You know, it was actually Cooper’s idea.”

I did a bit of a double take. “I thought that you and Cooper were barely on speaking terms.”

“I guess we’ll always have our issues…but he really has matured a lot. Besides, the thing about siblings is that sometimes even when they share all the same DNA, they can be two extremely different people being asked to coexist in relatively close quarters without the maturity to accept those differences. Kurt, Coop is eight years older than I am. I probably would have found him just as frustrating as he found me if the situation was reversed. It’s just that for him, violence was the way to show that irritation for a very long time. But then again for most of my memories of him, he was just a straight teenage boy who liked to sing and dance. Maybe he was getting as much shit at school as Finn and the others used to.”

“So what? You think it was just trickle down bullying?”

He shrugged. “Something like that. Not consciously. Not even bullying, just this sense of... 'I had a fucked up day, my little brother is getting on my nerves; let’s fuck up his day too.' But he cared. More than I thought he did. When the incident happened, Coop took the bus home. Two days on the bus because he didn’t have money for a plane ticket because he’d overspent his stipend for the month before it happened. I don’t know who was more shocked when he walked into my hospital room, me or Mom and Dad. He’s not a bad big brother…it just took the better part of the first half of our lives for either of us to realize that.”

I smiled as I heard and understood the truth of his words. Maybe Finn and I had been lucky, we were pretty close in age and our bullying incidences had pretty much all happened before we became brothers; before we were supposed to care about each other. We hadn’t needed all that much work to blend. “So how did Cooper happen to suggest that you try to graduate early?”

“Remember when he came for a visit near the end of June?” I nodded and Blaine continued. “I may have been brooding about whether or not I should even transfer to McKinley when we’d only have a year together and then I’d be stuck there without you. I was actually leaning towards not transferring at all. As much as I love you, I hated the thought of being left behind…” he trailed off.

“And I probably wouldn’t have been able to devote enough time to maintaining a long distance relationship because I’d be obsessively working on two different courses of study at two different schools.” I admitted honestly.

Blaine smiled sadly. “Exactly…we’d have drifted apart and you’d have been meeting all those handsome, fit, interesting men.”

I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. “There isn’t a man on this earth that I find more handsome, or more fit, or more interesting than you.”

Blaine smiled at my sentiment, but rolled his eyes. “Oh please, you know that we’re living with two.”

“Nope…Puck, while I can see that he is aesthetically pleasing, is involved with the closest thing I have to a sister. Therefore making him an irritating big brother who, it just happens, used to toss me into dumpsters. Sam lacks the antagonistic history, but he's still like a brother.” I said with a smile. “Besides, Puck is so on Team KLAINE. He gave me some really good advice on making our relationship work and last.”

“Oh really…well…the only relationship in the group that has lasted longer than their trio and our couple is TIKE…what was his suggestion?”

I blushed a lot. “He told me that I needed to make sure that I do my fair share of the work in making us WORK. He suggested that I need to make sure that I pay as much attention to you as I do to my skin care regimen.”

“Is that why you’ve been moisturizing me after my morning shower since we moved in?” Blaine laughed.

I nodded. “It seemed like a good way to take care of you and show you that I appreciate you.” 

“Just wait until we get out of this tub…then I’ll show you exactly how much I appreciate you.” He said sexily.

We quickly pulled ourselves out of the cooling bubbles and took a very fast shower before racing to our bed. We’d tried shower sex and found that it simply didn’t suit either of us. Too much having to bear our own weight under very good -but not conducive to standing up- circumstances. As soon as we were nestled among the baby blue, hundred thread count pima cotton sheets of our bed, Blaine pulled me in close to his side and whispered, "I SO want to fuck your mouth."

I instinctively and briefly reeled back still just a little surprised whenever he bluntly asked for anything sexual. I took a breath. “Thank God,” I murmured to myself. I wanted him too. I instantly remembered my first taste of him, and how every waking moment since, that he and I were not engaged in amorous pursuits, was filled with thoughts of him taking me, filling me with his seed until it overflowed my mouth or my other orifice.

I wanted his cock in my mouth in the worst way; to run my tongue all over him, to suck him down into the depths of my throat, and feel his hard cock pulsing inside me. I looked him in the eyes and reached over, running my hand up his left leg. I slipped under the sheet, got onto my knees, and dove onto his crotch, engulfing the length of him into my mouth. He caressed my head threading his nimble fingers through my hair and started slowly fucking my mouth giving us both exactly what we wanted. I ran my hands up his chest and played with his nipples, teasing them just as I knew he liked, until I pulled them back to play with his balls.

I actually took him all the way down, into my throat. In the months since we became intimate, I had become quite an accomplished cocksucker, I thought to myself. Blaine wasn’t super huge, just a little thicker than my own endowment. But he was far more sensitive along the ridge under the head. That meant that I had to be very careful with how I sucked him if I wanted things to last more than a few minutes. I was proud of the fact that I had mastered the art of swallowing, at just the right moment, when the head hit the back of my throat. It allowed him to slip into my throat without creating any extra stimulation behind the head until he pulled back.

In that moment, I tried something a little bit different since I was coming from above in that position. Rather than letting him control most of the movement, I took him, quickly and with authority, balls deep. His moans and groans of pleasure slipping out with each thrust. I consciously milked him with my throat muscles, all the while trying to make as few of those rather disgusting slurping and suckling sounds as possible under the circumstances. That was the most difficult part of giving a blow job; trying to do it quietly enough that even I couldn't hear the sloshing noises in my throat…even as I made sure that my passion and enthusiasm were high enough to keep him fully engrossed in the pleasure I was giving him.

"Baby, suck me off; let me cum in your mouth!" He whispered, tossing back the edge of the blue sheet, allowing me just a bit of fresh air to breath into my gasping lungs. His eyes darkened even further at the sight of his cock plunging my throat.

After a couple of very long minutes, I sensed he was close, and slipped my finger inside him, pressing on his prostate, pushing him over. I didn't want to miss the exquisite taste, so I pulled back, so I wouldn't lose all of his cum 'down the drain', as it were. I heard him moan as he flooded my mouth, but I took it all, sucking on that beautiful and very sensitive head of his cock, not losing so much as a drop. Fuck, he tasted good. I only wished there was more of him. I deep throated him again before sucking him dry as his spasms subsided, and ended my very brave under-cover mission.

I came up to kiss him with all the passion he had ignited in my soul and in my loins. I had taken care of him first and now it was my turn. As soon as the kiss broke, I had him turn over and come up on all fours. I spent a very long time teasing him with my mouth and lips, tormenting him with my hands and teeth and tongue. Leaving him only long enough to cover my erection in latex and lube, I turned him back over onto his back, pulling his legs up, opening his ass for me. "Yes Kurt. Make love to me."

Blaine’s words burned into my heart, and I kissed him as passionately. Our tongues swirled around each other’s', our mouths locked together, as I slowly slid inside him, inch by inch by inch. As we gazed at each other in the stillness of the day, my cock completely buried balls-deep inside him, we embraced. "I love you, Kurt Elizabeth Hummel." Blaine whispered sweetly.

"Yes, I know. I love you too," I said, smiling back at him.

Slowly, I increased the pace of my thrusts, deep into my new lover's ass, while I stroked his cock and wrapped my arms around him. Blaine just kept repeating the same words to me: "Fuck me ... fuck me ..." and I felt his bowels open wider for me as he pushed against me. I rolled over onto my side, and took him like that for a while, reaching for more lube from his nightstand so that I could fuck him harder. That was my favorite position in which to make love to Blaine, we could maintain eye contact and I could still reach all of his other erogenous zones with my free hand. It was a very intimate yet intense way of making love, one that we seemed to settle on in the special occasions that we conjoined in this way.

I began to vary my thrusts, going slow for a while, feeling the veins of my cock slide up against the slippery walls of his ass as I penetrated him; then suddenly SLAM my cock home, driving hard against his prostate while massaging his balls. I loved to watch his reaction, right down to the size of the pupils in his eyes, as I held him tight and still in the long pauses between my impassioned thrusts; teasing him with the mushroom head of my cock inside and just past his tight outer anal ring.

He seemed to anticipate when I was going to drive into him by opening his mouth; and I would fuck him there too, with my tongue, in rhythm with my cock. I loved it the way he cried out and whimpered, and I delighted in playing with his cock and squeezing and tugging his massive balls as I teased him closer and closer to orgasm. We carried on like that for what seemed like a very long while; and I told him how fucking sexy he looked, and how much I really wanted to just lose it and fuck him with absolute abandon.

"Yes, fuck me HARD Kurt! You feel so good inside me..." Blaine twisted his lower half slightly away and brought his high leg up into his chest, but was still facing me, eyes and mouth wide open, as if to invite me to really have at him. And I did. I gradually picked up my pace, my balls now making unfortunately loud slapping noises against his ass with each thrust. I picked up the pace, realizing that not only he, but that I too was getting close to going over the edge. I could feel his contractions in time with mine, and his prostate all swollen and throbbing - and knew I was hitting it with my cock-head at just the right angle and wondered if I might actually give him a prostate centered orgasm.

Just the thought of that was enough, and I felt myself well up and knew I was almost there. "I'm going to cum Blaine…fill you up with my cum, Blaine!"

"Fuck.” He hissed. “Please cum inside me Kurt! I'm so close…gonna cum too!" With that, I slid my fingers into his mouth, letting him get them wet. Moving them as soon as they were ready, I put my face right up next to his and we locked eyes; I gently wrapped my hand around his cock - it felt so hard and hot and slick in my hand - and started stroking, using his saliva and pre-cum to lovingly stroke him to the finish line. We both came intensely, and in throbbing unison; his hot cum coming forth in spurts and ribbons across his chest and stomach, timed thrust-for-thrust with mine, injected way up inside the dark heat of his bowels.

We never lost eye contact throughout the bliss of those few ecstatic and climactic moments of passion; and when our post-orgasmic spasms subsided, I scooped up his ample seed, still warm to my touch, and brought it to our entwined lips to share and savor together - my second helping of his delectable man-cream today. We took another quick shower and fell into the bed and into Morpheus’ embrace

The next morning came early. I was in a wonderful mood, so I made everyone a big breakfast of crepe suzettes, blueberry muffins and bacon. The adventure with the parents was worth every moment. While I missed my Dad and Carole, the Jones and Andersons made sure that I felt fully enveloped in parental affection. We spent the evening walking through the Museum of Modern Art then had dinner at an Indian place near the museum before making our way home for the night. The rest of the week was spent getting ready for school the following week and going to orientation activities. My classes actually started the same day most of the rest of the parents were flying out. NYADA had a much shorter orientation cycle. We saw a play on Friday evening and the matinee of a musical on Saturday. We did our advisory appointments on Monday and they gave us Tuesday to get our books and ready ourselves for classes.

Classes started bright and early on Wednesday morning. My first class was a techniques class that was heavy in both theory and practice. My Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes were sixty minutes each and my Tuesday, Thursday classes were ninety minutes each. I also had ‘labs’ where I was basically practicing either singing or dancing for two hours every week. Fortunately, they had no set time and I could do them whenever they fit into my schedule. The practice rooms were always staffed by graduate students who could assist us with our rehearsal. Three times a week, in the mornings, I had three classes then a break until my last class that started at six in the evening. On the other two days, I had four classes that were over by five thirty. After those Tuesday/Thursday NYADA classes, I had a two hour long class at FIT from six thirty to eight thirty. My Saturdays were slated for my two FIT online courses.

Probably I would have been exhausted in a month if not for Blaine. But in that first week, he established a very strong routine that helped me to find balance. He made me take care of myself. Thanks to him and Cedes I ate every meal. He massaged my tired and achy muscles. He made sweet and passionate love to me in the evenings. On Saturday afternoons and evenings the gang forced me to put aside work and join them for a movie night. Everything was more perfect than I ever thought it could be. Our future was starting off wonderfully.

Mirror (NeYo)  
Mercedes PoV

Getting ready to start classes was a major undertaking. I was so grateful that we’d taken the time to record ‘The Fighter’ the song we had done as a trio for the movie soundtrack. We’d have never had time to finish it before it needed to be in to the producers. As it was we were almost late for our 'lunch/welcome to Warner Records for real’ meeting we had with Lyor Cochran and two of his executives. We arrived just three minutes after our one o’clock meeting time at the Sea Grill in Rockefeller Center. Fortunately Lyor and his companions were still waiting on us and seemed quite happy to see us. They waived off our apologies for the slight delay in our arrival. “Don’t worry about it. Until I got used to the city I was consistently twenty to thirty minutes late for everything.” Lyor assured us kindly.

The meeting was threefold, they wanted to let us know about our tentative recording schedule…tentative would become permanent once we had our class schedules. We would have seven Saturday sessions until the album was complete. The weekends would be for recording, so we would be responsible for arranging a practice schedule during the week. We certainly agreed to that stipulation. We were ready to get started. We would wait until after the first week of classes, but we all had our schedules and had purchased our books; other than our advisory meetings, we were set for school. Getting started on this part of our future seemed the next natural progression.

Another part of the reason they had wanted to meet with us was also the fact that they needed to discuss a song they wanted us to cover. “Okay…so Jill played the song you three wrote in LA for Mike Shinoda, when they were working on one of her songs for the soundtrack. Later on he was apparently discussing you with Josh Todd. He mentioned the three of you and how he thought that your sound was going to take the game in a brand new direction. Next thing I know, Josh is calling me wanting me to see if you would like to cover ‘Rescue Me’.” Lyor said with a grin at the looks of shock on our faces.

“Ok so wait…let me get this straight. The front man for Buckcherry wants us to cover one of their songs…a song that isn’t even a decade old yet?” Puck blurted out.

Lyor nodded. “You’ll have full creative license to re-arrange it however you deem fit. He ultimately wasn’t all that happy with the song despite how much he loved the lyrics. He’s hoping for a Dolly Parton/Whitney Houston kind of moment.”

Puck seemed confused. “I remember that. Mrs. Parton was on a show doing an interview and some smarmy guy asked her how she felt about having her song covered by Ms. Houston and the fact that few people realized that it was Mrs. Parton’s song in the first place…” Sam started explaining. “I think he was hoping for a sound bite about how the Country icon didn’t like what the R&B icon had done to the song. But Mrs. Parton told him that she had loved it. That that was how it had sounded in her head when she first wrote it and how the first time she heard it she was driving and had to pull over ‘cause she was crying at how beautiful it was.”

“Well then, we’ll just have to try our best to make him proud. How do we make this all legit? We don’t want a Weird Al/Coolio situation.” I asked thoughtfully. I was already planning to listen to the song as soon as I got out of the meeting.

Lyor smiled. “Listen to the song and we’ll schedule a meeting between the three of you and Josh and the other song writers after everything settles down for you. It would probably be best if you have a rough idea of what changes you want to make to it.” Puck, Sam and I agreed and Lyor broached the next subject. “Okay, we need to start working on your development. That means that we need to start with a group name. Unfortunately ‘A More Perfect Union’ is the title of a movie, and one of Obama’s greatest speeches. That isn’t really anything we can change nor is it something we can now copyright for you three.”

I couldn’t help but pout. I had liked that one. “Well…there is another one I thought of. It is a Hindu word that means desire or wish or longing. It is often used to refer to any sensory enjoyment, deeper emotional attraction and aesthetic pleasure like you might get from enjoying the arts; dance, music, painting, sculptor and nature.”

Mr. Strang smiled at us. “KAMA, we’ll definitely have it written in all caps…that isn’t a bad idea.”

Lyor and Mr. Castillio both agreed that it was a good idea. KAMA was the tentative name of our group. The executives wanted to do some market testing to see how people would react to it. I personally decided that I’d come up with an alternative or two just in case it proved to be too cerebral for our target audience.

With that subject tabled for the moment, Puck and Sam raised a couple of concerns of their own. “We did an ass load of print ads this summer. Our faces are gonna be in some catalogues and a few magazines. Plus my mom is going to be on an episode of Say Yes…and I think my voice will be on it too.”

They looked confused for a moment. Finally Mr. Castillio spoke up. “To be honest, it could actually be a good thing. Despite the nature of your relationship, you guys were never going to be billed as the traditional bad boy rock stars. Lyor has always said that we would be billing Puck as a Badass with a heart of gold. The whole appearance on the bridal show will just cement that. Sam…sorry but you were always going to be the ‘boy next door’ sex symbol, while Mercedes will be the ‘real women have curves’ sex symbol…a return to good sense in sexuality. The modeling just jumpstarts the marketing process for us.” 

Lyor, however, still looked contemplative. “I think we will need to move forward your album release. Having your two faces out already and with Warner Films looking to release ‘Songbird’ in time for Christmas...it just makes good sense. The soundtrack will come out anywhere from two to four weeks before that. The three of you will be on the red carpet for the premiere…your name and faces will be out there. I’d like to have your album in store in time for you to do a mini promotional tour during your spring break and start your tour the week after your last final.”

It was Sam who answered the implied question. “We have thirty seven songs we’ve written in the last year. Some of them were just for fun…but I do think that we should be able to find at least seventeen or eighteen of them that can be released for this album.”

I nodded. “We can start practicing with Santana, Kurt and Blaine as soon as next week or the week after. However, we do have a problem about the summer touring. Puck’s mom’s wedding will most likely be next summer and my big brother’s fiancée has already set their date for June twenty first. Puck, Sam and I are in both.”

Mr. Strang nodded. “We can lock that weekend in as a free one. Just let us know when Ms. Puckerman will be getting married and we can add that into the tour schedule as well. Now…with the pushed forward time line, I’ll go ahead and arrange the first set of meetings with the image and marketing people.”

“Hold up…image…like those skinny bitches that almost ran Ke$ha crazy…had her bulimic and in rehab and shit…hell to the no.” Puck blurted out.

Lyor chuckled a little. “Don’t worry Puck; I’ve made very sure that everyone involved with this project knows that the talent is important. The beauty and sexiness are a bonus that we are blessed comes along with Mercedes’ -all of your voices, really. However, I really don’t believe that that will pose any problem any way. Mercedes, you have become even more lovely and sexy since the night you three sang at Amour de La Vie.”

I felt heat infuse my face. “Thank you. I’m sure that everything will be fine. We are strong enough that we can handle whatever your image consultants want to throw at us.” I blustered. He wasn’t the first person to allude to me having lost weight over the course of the last year and a half. I had a hard time seeing it, in my mind I was still pretty much the same…my waist was a little smaller, my belly a little flatter…but as far as I could tell, not much had changed.

The rest of the lunch went fairly quickly after that. I’d kept things light with a nice salad and some rock shrimp tempura. Lyor gave us a list of the preferred studios we could utilize and professional studio musicians. We knew that we didn’t want ‘canned’ music for our album, not even shorn up with Puck and Sam’s guitars. As we walked to the subway after the meeting, Sam, Noah and I talked about which instruments we would need for the sound we wanted to create. We’d written all the songs with piano and guitar, but we knew that we’d at least need a drummer, a bassist and another pianist. We also agreed that we should keep a look out for fresh talent on campus and around the city. Maybe we could even tour with a live band. That would definitely set us apart from most of the Pop or R&B or even any fusion groups on the scene. There was also much debate about whether I should just go ahead and do the piano myself for a few songs just so we could really get started practicing. Especially since I knew better than anyone else what the piano lines for our songs were supposed to sound like. We really wanted to get started and it would save us time and money if I did play.

But before we could truly concentrate on our music, we needed to get used to the whole college thing. Sam, Noah and I all had our advisory meetings the very next day. Though I had been the one to pull the cosmic short straw and have the one scheduled for eight am. We were all dealing with them. Other than Kurt’s who’d actually started classes the week before, I would be the first to face the proverbial gauntlet. Puck didn’t have to be at his advisor’s office until ten and Sam’s was set for thirty minutes later. Blaine had his the next day at two and Santana’s and Artie’s were both set for Thursday. I was kind of surprised that Kurt was already up at six in the morning. But there he was in the fitness room doing one of the yoga videos.

“Wow…getting bendy there, Kurtsie.” I teased.

He smiled. “Need to be for some of the moves they’re expecting me to make. I should have made Brittany teach me all her dancing moves over the summer. Despite working on my sequel for ‘Pip Pip Hurray’, I still found myself with a lot of time on my hands…since my best friend was off taking Hollywood by storm.”

I saw the pride and humor shining in his eye, so all I could do was giggle. “Yeah well, ya know…I gots it like that now.” We both dissolved into giggles. I might be black, but growing up in Lima, I couldn’t do street any better than Puck or Artie. “I’m gonna let you get back to your yoga. I’ll fix some breakfast.” I made my way down to the kitchen. I loved my kitchen. It was spacious. It was pretty. It was well mapped out and well organized. I bent down and pulled out a deep baking pan and one of the many baking racks. I opened the massive stainless steel refrigerator and pulled out the bacon. I put enough pieces of bacon for Kurt and I to both have some on the baking rack which rested over the deeper baking dish; that would allow the oil to drain out of the bacon as it cooked. I placed that into the regular oven at four hundred. I was fairly determined to save the convection ovens for my baking.

Turning back to the fridge, I opened the freezer. I pulled out the bags of frozen berries, strawberries, raspberries, black and blue berries, as well as some mango, papaya, pomegranate, pineapple and sliced peaches. I dropped those on the counter and dug through the fridge for the Greek yogurt, cran-raspberry, pomegranate and orange juices. Once I had all of those placed on the counter, I reached into the cabinet that housed the Ninja blender and assembled it. I grabbed three last things, glasses for Kurt and I, the raw, organic honey he swore by, and a big travel mug for myself. I assembled the smoothies in the Ninja and poured them into the cups. I put the travel mug into the freezer and finished assembling our breakfast. Lightly toasted, whole grain English muffins, one with strawberry preserves for Kurt and one with Polander’s All Fruit for me. By the time I had everything ready and waiting on the breakfast bar, Kurt joined me.

We talked about how his advisory meetings had gone. At NYADA and FIT he’d met with ‘professors’ to discuss his avenues of interest and set his schedule. I always saw the air quotes around the word professors because his NYADA advisor was actually John Dossett, one of the stars of Mama Mia. His FIT advisor wasn’t as famous, but her work was as much art as it was fashion, Daria Dorosh, London Punk fashion artist. He’d told me all about both of them so many times. They had helped him to tailor his schedules around his hellaciously hectic needs. “So, are you ready for tomorrow?”

“Is it really very nerdy of me to have already packed my backpack?” he asked with a shy smile.

I shrugged. “I can’t talk…at least your classes start tomorrow and your backpack is ready and waiting…mine is ready and my classes don’t start for a week.” I admitted with a shared laugh. We talked a little longer and I realized that I needed to get my butt in gear.

“Go, get dressed. You cooked, I’ll handle the clean-up.” He chided shooing me away. I put my dishes in the sink and ran upstairs to get ready.

My shower was fast, my lotioning not so much. I had learned early that unfortunately, fighting the ash wasn’t something that could ever be rushed. I wanted to look nice but not like I was trying too hard. Quietly I moved to my closet and pulled together an outfit. I looked at my currently organized racks. A pair of black, curvy fit, straight legged slacks with raised detail seams down the front of the legs and two large silver ‘buttons’ on the snap tab belt loops were paired with a purple short sleeved, scooped neck pleated silk blouse. I unbraided my hair and picked my afro out before wrapping a similarly colored purple scarf around my roots. Diamond stud earrings, my white gold “love” necklace and a long silver Y shaped chain that boasted the same word, a bunch of bangle bracelets and a pair of black wedge sandals finished off the look. It was too hot to worry with makeup, so I just slid on some lip gloss, packed a tote bag…double checking for my metrocard, kissed my still sleeping loves and headed out.

Since I was heading to a meeting and I didn’t want to arrive smelling less than fresh, I hit the 104 bus and arrived at the Uris building which housed the Columbia Business School less than fifteen minutes later. My advisory was with my major advisor. Dr. Joel Brockner was the Phillip Hettleman Professor of Business at Columbia’s Business School. He wasn’t the department chair, but the next man down on the totem pole. He was apparently doing research on listening and interpersonal interactions and influence. He was very, very professional and he walked me through what courses he felt I needed to focus on to integrate business management, marketing and music to really prepare me for the ‘career path you’ve already begun to traverse’. Apparently, most of the department knew about my impending path as a recording artist. We mapped out the courses I would be taking at both Columbia and looked over the courses I would be eligible to take through my cross registration. Basically I would be taking only the major required classes at Juilliard and doing core curriculum and major required courses at Columbia. After the meeting, I took the train down to Juilliard to kind of map out mentally the distance and time I’d need to move between the two schools. Rather than going straight home, I took some time to explore the building and find where my classes all were to be held. I actually ran into Madame Falcone. She was the vocal arts professor that I was ‘assigned’ as a mentor. She and I talked for over an hour. The best part was when she called in Dr. Cantaneo and he helped me with a meter problem that had been driving me crazy in the rearrangement of the Buckcherry song.

By the time I made it home, it was a little before noon and I was surprised to find the entire house empty. For a moment I wondered why they hadn’t texted me. I dug into my bad and found my phone only to realize that I had not turned it back on after my meeting with Dr. Brockner. Thankfully my guys knew me well. They had left me a note on the door to our room to tell me that Sam had decided to head to campus with Puck to get a feel for the place. They also reminded me that we were meeting the remaining parents and the NYC family for a goodbye dinner. I turned my poor phone on to find out where the rest of the household was. Santana, Artie and Brittany had apparently been dragged, kicking and screaming in Tana’s case to the grocery store because their mothers felt that they should have at least some food in their own kitchen, even if it was just cereal and snacks. Kurt and Blaine were meeting with Neil and Trudy because Dr. Puckerman was not one to let grass grow under his feet when it came to making money.

I decided that having an empty house would be the perfect time to figure out what everyone was seeing that I just wasn’t. I made sure that the doors downstairs were locked and closed both my inner and outer bedroom suite doors. I hung up my slacks and put my top aside to be dry cleaned. I padded over to my wonderful cheval mirror and stood there in my purple lace bra and panty set. I looked at myself, trying to keep an open mind and look with completely unbiased eyes. I took in the overall picture I presented to the world. My skin was a deep, rich, warm brown...definitely darker than regular milk chocolate but not as dark as the dark enough to be healthy chocolates. It was smooth with stretch marks as the only real, permanent blemishes. I looked closer, trying to find the war wounds from fights with my brothers and one altercation with a straightening comb the Easter after I turned seven. But apparently the cocoa and shea butters and the vitamin E oil had done their jobs for the most part. They were all so far gone as to almost have faded away to nothing.

I was pretty short. In my bare feet I stood only five foot three inches tall. My detailed assessment began at the top, with my hair. It was thick and even in its natural state it was really long. Though nowhere near as long as when it was straightened, and far, far shorter than my mother’s. I loved my hair. Few people, even those who knew me, understood that truth. I chose to rock weaves primarily for uniformity back in high school and I made the decision to keep getting my weaves did for the convenience. Greasing my scalp with the weave took me fifteen minutes every couple of days, with the natural hair it was an hour long battle every night to grease my scalp, moisturize and braid down the hair. My eyes traveled down the mirror just a bit. My forehead was nice and smooth, gently curved rather than sloping. My brow ridge was actually, pretty delicate looking. Not heavily ridged, it had a nice natural arch. The eyebrows themselves might tend towards a slight bushiness in their natural state, but that was why God had given us tweezers, threading and wax. The bridge of my nose was set perfectly in the middle of my face, my eyes symmetrical, almond shaped with healthy white orbs around dark brown irises. I’d never noticed before that my irises seemed to have little golden flecks swimming in the dark brown pools. My cheeks were round…very round. I reached up and pressed my fingers to my cheek bones. They were fairly high, but not so high that they made my eyes sink in.

My nose itself was cute. That was the perfect word…cute. My lips were large, soft, rarely chapped and always seemed to be in the very beginning stage of a smile. If my nose was cute, then my mouth was pretty with shades of sexy. I had what they call in romance novels a ‘stubborn little chin’ making my jawline strong despite the soft flesh of my cheeks. My neck and shoulders were certainly sturdy…strong, but there was a certain beauty to them as well. They were very straight. My propensity for slouching at school had never been permitted at home. My arms would probably never be the Tina Turner kind of arms, but they weren’t flabby or weak. My hands were strong too, though my fingers were a little stumpy. My gel manicure was still on point, I’d gone with a deep purple with subtle sparkles in it. The nails themselves were only a little longer than flush. I needed to keep them neat and tidy for typing and piano playing.

I knew my body basics. I knew my measurements. They had changed over the course of the last year of my life. Forty to forty-one inches around the fullest part of my chest, the measure under my bust was usually around thirty-three to thirty-four inches, a difference of eight inches which meant that I was supposed to wear an H cup, but I didn’t see any reason to admit that outside my own head. I’d gone from measuring a thirty six around my waist to being a twenty-nine or thirty. My hip measurement was stuck between forty-two and forty-four inches. But a lot of that was my backside. In that moment, looking in the mirror, I forced myself to look beyond the base numbers.

My breasts were large. No two ways around that fact. But to be honest for the longest time I’d had mixed feeling about their size. While I loved having breasts that most women would need surgery to achieve, I hadn’t liked the attention that they brought to me from a very young age. Only since I had begun my relationship with Sam and Noah had I really become completely comfortable with the attention they were paid. Though I did still find myself keeping them more covered when I wasn’t with either or both of my guys, it seemed disrespectful of our connection to do otherwise. Below my breasts, my abdomen was much flatter than I had realized it had gotten. My waist dipped in quite a bit, giving me well defined curves. I would probably always have a muffin top if I tried to wear certain styles, but I could clearly see my belly button again. It was a nice deep innie…I wondered for a second what it would look like pierced. I was besieged buy a sudden image of lying in bed with Noah and Sam, Noah idly flicking a little platinum hoop back and forth looking at me with an endearingly happy smile. I shook that thought off and returned to the asexual appraisal of my body.

My eyes fell to my still lace clad hips. They were a lot wider than a lot of people I knew, but that didn’t bother me. Some time I still thought it was shocking that Quinn hadn’t had more problems having Beth, her hips were so small. My hips fit my body well. My thighs flowed out from them softly toned despite their thickness. My knees didn’t fold over at all, looking like knees should, the very front of them darker than the rest of my legs thanks to an active childhood. My calves were thick and strong, toned and looked almost strange relaxed without being taunt due to high heels. My ankles were well turned, not ‘cankles’, they were definitely more slender than the calves above them. My feet were short and plump, but not so plump that they looked like bread dough in pumps. My toes were about like my fingers. Stumpy but well pedicured. The flesh of my feet soft and pretty.

I reached behind me and unhooked my bra and then skived off my panties and continued my visual examination. It was strange the difference a year made. I know that I was beautiful before I lost any weight, but looking at myself, I really saw the inherent sensuality of my body. I wasn’t just beautiful, I wasn’t just pretty. I was sexy, I was hot. I finally understood that Puck and Sam weren’t seeing me through rose colored glasses because they loved me, they were right. I ran my hands over my body very slowly. I loved the feel of my warm, soft skin under my palms. I hefted my breasts in my hands. They were very heavy and when not supported, they drooped quite a bit. But they weren’t totally saggy like I belonged on a Nat Geo special the way Santana had theorized once sophomore year. Probably because I had worn bras twenty-four seven until they finally got so uncomfortable that I couldn’t continue. The skin of my breasts was somewhat lighter where covered by swimsuits and clothes, but still a chocolate brown. The areolas darker still about three or four inches across, my nipples smack dab in the center pointing forward. My nipples were very sensitive. Very, very sensitive, I blew a small puff of air across one and it stood to attention. In that moment I realized that I was actually getting aroused.

I didn’t understand that. Why seeing myself naked was having that effect on me. It never really had before. Whenever I needed to take care of my own needs, I’d always done it at night, in my bed, with the door locked. But there I was, naked in broad daylight, getting more and more aroused simply because I’d finally embraced my own arousability. It was a new thought that I really, really liked. I let my fingers play for just a moment, tickling and teasing but not really trying to further arouse myself. I looked down at the ultimate symbol of my femininity. The delta of Venus which led to my vagina. It was completely hairless. I wanted it that way. Having hair down there made me feel hotter and less fresh. I knew that that was probably all psychosomatic, but it didn’t hurt anything to keep it waxed. I’d already done my research and found the perfect waxing salon in the city. It was UNI-K down near Juilliard, well one of their locations was, and it was ranked as the most hygienic spa in the city. I was already scheduled for a consultation just to make sure that it was the right salon for me.

I shook off the intrusive thoughts of the things I would need to do in the future to focus on finally burying issues that had become insidious in their ability to rise from the shallow graves I’d been placing them into thinking they were resolved. I turned to the side and looked at myself in silhouette. I was curvy from every angle, and for the first time, I really, truly, completely accepted and loved that fact. I looked at my ass. It was high and round…what among certain groups was called ‘an onion booty’… ‘cause they made grown men cry. I had to stop seeing it as a liability... something else that made me different from the girls the boys at school considered ‘pretty’. But my body, my thick, soft thighs, my high, round ass, my soft, full, large tits, big, pillowy soft lips…they all worked together to make me… me. I was nothing less than a work of GOD so there was no way I was letting anyone ever again have the power to make me feel less than beautiful.

I ran my hand over my ass and shivered in desire. Perhaps it was the sense memory of having Puck and Sam grab my ass as they made, sometimes rough but always perfect, love to me, but just running my hand over the swell and I knew that I had suddenly passed the point of no return. Leaving the mirror behind, I made my way to the bed, Sam or Noah had made before they left for their advisory meetings. I didn’t get under the covers. I could see myself in the cheval glass and it only made me more horny. My hands slid over my body again, just running them over my skin, feeling the softness and the smoothness. With almost forgotten ease my hands made their way to my breasts. I circled my nipples over and over until they stood back up. Only then did I start to pinch them gently. Soon my fingers lost their gentleness and my moans started to fill the room. I’m a fairly slow masturbator; however, that day I really had thought it would be quick and dirty. I love my breasts, they are deliciously sensitive and they made me lose all track of quick or fast. Watching my movements in the mirror, I played with my breasts for quite a long while and pretty much drove myself crazy.

My body was crying out for the next step, so I ran my palms down over the soft flesh of my belly and down. My legs opened showing the brown edged pink valley to the mirror and allowing my fingers to take me closer to an orgasm that was already pooling in my senses. My middle finger was just dipping into my pussy to collect enough moisture to fully touch my clit, when the door opened and Sam strode in only to come to a complete, sudden halt making Noah run into his back. Just the day before, had that happened, I probably would have jumped and tried to cover up and hide what I had been doing. Instead my eyes locked on theirs and my fingers continued their work. If anything, their presence made the feelings coursing through me stronger and more intense. Sam took three steps forward and knelt on the floor. “You are so fucking beautiful Madame Mercy. Thank you for allowing us to see you like this.”

Puck’s smirk was completely irreverent, but he too knelt and looked at me with hungry eyes. “Tell us what we have to do to get our mouths where your fingers are Sexy Mama.”

Sam nudged him, “What do you want us to do? Your every wish is our command.”

“How is that any different than usual?” Puck quipped. “But no seriously, Sexy Mama. This is your show. Tell us how to serve you.”

“I want you to strip naked and go stand in front of the mirror. I want you to look at yourself and see yourself the way that we see you the way that stupid photographer in Cali saw you…Sam you are so amazingly handsome, so sexy and so hot, but you still have moments when you can’t see that. I really think that I finally laid mine to rest today. I want the same for you.” Then I turned to Puck. I knew what I wanted, something deep inside told me that it was rather selfish, but in that moment, I didn’t care. “While Sam has his epiphany, I want you to come over here and show me the full PuckZilla experience. No holds barred, no holding back.” Noah never totally fucked me. He always held back some of the roughness; some of the hardness I knew from Santana and Brittany was usually a part of riding the Zilla. I wasn’t sure why, I just knew he did.

“Make sure you want that before you ask it of me.” Noah said quietly as Sam stood to follow my bidding. My eyes found his and I allowed him to see the desire for exactly what he had to give shining in them. He stood up and shucked off his shirt, barely dropped his pants and materialized a condom from one of his inexhaustible hiding spots. Puck joined me on the bed and smirked down at me. The condom hit my palm with his word, “hold on to that, you’re gonna be putting that on me with them sexy ass lips in a few minutes.” He knelt next my hips and bent down to fasten his lips around my clit. His tongue went to work licking lightning fast and hard against my swollen clit. The difference in his current pussy eating and what I was used to from him was immediately apparent. He barely touched me, and while the way he was licking me felt great and launched me into the orgasm I’d been building myself, it was almost like he was disconnected from me. When my mind and body were correctly aligned after that orgasmic out of body experience; I found Puck looking at me expectantly his eyes shooting back and forth between his dick and the condom that was clenched in my fist.

I ripped open the prophylactic and placed the tip carefully between my lips. Rolling the damn thing onto Puck’s cock was harder than it looked when he’d done it for Sam…maybe my lips got into the way. Despite my lack of deftness, he wasn’t complaining. “Fuck yeah.” Puck moaned as I finally accomplished the feat. “Shit you’re so fucking sexy, Mama. He didn’t move over me or kiss me or anything; instead he grabbed my hips and rolled us so that I was straddling his still boxer brief covered hips. The way he thrust up into me was dominating and commanding, but still completely different than Seigneur’s usual dominance and command. It was rough and harsh and all about his pleasure. I came. He wouldn’t not let me come, that went against the rules of the Zilla. He always felt like he had to make damn sure that his partner came a lot, but where my usual orgasms were fire in my veins these were the burns of ice. I can’t say that my orgasm were superfluous to his, they weren’t. But rather than being a product of our shared desire and love, Puck was causing me to orgasm as a pride thing. It was so wrong; the lack of intimacy, but the difference was a little thrilling. His fingers and lips played with my nipples and clit, but the tugs and pinches were harsher, sharper. Eventually he came, but there wasn’t a roar of completion or words of love…there were mean little grunts. If I didn’t know his body even better than my own, I probably would have missed it completely.

Sam pulled me back and away from Puck. Our lover was smiling through the tears on his cheeks. Something told me that he’d finally slayed a few demons that day as well. “Alright…put the Zilla back in his cage. She knows the difference between loving her and fucking her now. Little shocked by how hard she came from that emotionless shit but I’ve gotta give you props man. You gave her exactly what she was asking for. I’ve always wondered how the hell you can eat a pussy without tasting it.” he muttered as Puck came back from disposing of the full condom.

“With those big ass lips, I don’t think you can. Soup coolers like that get all up in the Koolaid, no way around that.” Noah taunted back. He lowered his lips to mine in a kiss that definitely revitalized the connection between us. It was never gone, he’d just suppressed it. That was shockingly weird to me. But I guess that is part of the reason why they say be careful what you ask for. Noah’s hazel eyes latched onto my own brown orbs. “Not doing that again Sexy Mama. I need to feel you everywhere when we’re together. Squeezing my dick and caressing my heart.” He said very sternly. “Quick and dirty is fine, but you will never be just some chick getting my dick wet. I love you and I need that connection or whatever it is that cements this weird ass thruple thang. Our lovemaking is amazing and what makes it so fucking perfect is that it isn’t just fucking. Got me?”

“I got you, Boo.” I agreed and threaded my fingers through his ‘hawk, pulling him down for another reaffirming kiss. “I’ve gotta say though, in the same vein, I can’t stand the taste of latex. So you and Sam can do that shit all you want…I will admit it is sexy as hell to watch, but this girl ain’t rolling on no more condoms with her mouth…” I shot back saucily, taking control back. It was still my show and we didn’t have all day. I made that point to the men who shared my heart.

“Then command us Lady…what to you want us to do for you.” Sam said thickly. His dick was straining and I could easily see that he needed some relief.

I looked over at Puck and saw that he had noticed as well. “Sam, why don’t you lay back and tell us what realizations you came to during your time in front of the mirror, while Noah takes care of that beautiful erection you’re hosting.”

Sam gave me a cheeky grin. “As you wish.” He said in his best Cary Elwes impersonation. He moved up to lay back against the cool, slick wood of our head board. Noah took his own sweet time as he moved between Sam’s spread legs. We all watched, entranced, while those tan hands slid up Sam’s legs, pausing on either side of hiss nearly painful erection.

"For fuck's sake, Puck, I'm dying, please!"

Noah smiled up knowingly and finally wrapped his strong fingers around the base of Sam's cock. Sam thought his legs would give way in that first moment, but he leaned back against the cool wood and concentrated on taking deep breaths, concentrated on those naughty hazel eyes that never broke his gaze even when Puck slipped the tip of Sam's cock between his lips. Sam flexed his fingers helplessly at his sides and his hips began to rock gently matching the pace of Noah's sucking and teasing.

Sam ran his fingers through Noah’s thick brown hair, at first just slicking it back from Noah's face while he watched his cock disappear over and over into that warm, wet, willing mouth. Soon he had his fingers curled tightly against Noah's head, and his thrusting hips became more insistent. He was rewarded with a deep moan and felt fingers slide around behind his balls, tugging and squeezing. He gasped and pushed forward hard, completely spellbound when he felt Puck's lips so close to the root of his cock.

Noah pulled away with a wet gasp and licked his lips as he pulled. His soft chuckle echoed around the room. Sam groaned, really almost a whimper, in disappointment. Puck looked up at Sam, the tip of Sam’s dick resting against his bottom lip. "Start talking…I want to know if you had an epiphany like Sexy Mama wanted."

Our blond love groaned, but he started talking. “I’m handsome…I have a good body. But I’m more than just the sum of some really hot parts. But my parts are really pretty hot. I mean my eyes are kinda gorgeous. And my lips might be big, but they fit me. I’m a really good height, tall but not too tall, my shoulders are broad but not so much that I need to bulk up to keep from looking weird. I’m not fat. There isn’t anything on me that would make me feel pudgy anymore. I’m not dumb either. Just because I’m not super-duper smart doesn’t make me an idiot. I’m really good at a lot of things.” He moaned as Noah finally continued his oral assault. “Oh God…Puck…Fuck.” He hissed but he tried to bring his thoughts back together to continue. “I deserve the love the two of you give me. Not really by anything I did, but just because you think that I deserve it. I know that you don’t love me because I’m hot, but I am and it’s okay to say it as long as I don’t go from insecurity to conceit.” He babbled. “Oh Damn…So glad you two chose to give our love a chance. I love you two and yeah some of it is because there isn’t anyone on earth hotter than the two of you, but that’s not the only reason I love you and that’s exactly how you feel about me. So if anyone has a problem with how I look…fuck…fuck…fuck ‘em. They aren’t either of you so they can kiss my country ass.” He roared as his hips came off the bed and he flooded Puck’s mouth with his cum.

As Sam got his breath back, his eyes looked at me with undisguised hunger. I knew exactly what I wanted, needed, next. I spread my legs, pulled my wet fingers away from my pussy and gestured as if drawing Sam to me. “I want to feel your beautiful mouth on me.” I said my voice filled with quiet command. “Then when you’re ready, I want Noah to make love to you while you are making love to me. If we have time, we can switch that around in the shower.”

Puck moved to the side and Sam crawled over to feast on me. He began by licking up and down my labia, cleaning away all the pussy juice that had come from me in the course of our play. Sam then concentrated on teasing my clit with quick little flicks of his tongue all around it. My head fell back as I moaned. “That feels so good.” I felt Sam smile against me, right before he closed his mouth around my clit and gently sucked while he circled around it with his tongue. I was in complete bliss and nearing orgasm when he inserted a finger inside me and was bending and straightening it in a "come here" motion against the front wall of my sex. I was pushed to the edge and a long loud scream was drawn from me as I was buffeted by wave after wave of pleasure.

“God Darlin’ you’re just as beautiful from this angle as you are from above.” Sam lowered his mouth back to my pussy and returned to teasing and licking, tickling and sucking my pussy as Noah got the condom and lube. Oh God, Sam was actively trying to make me insane and watching Noah open his ass and prepare it for his cock only helped. I was moaning and thrashing on the bed as Sam let me have a first orgasm from him, only to work me to the edge of the next at least four or five times before my blond lover finally wrapped his gorgeous lips around my clit and sucked it like a straw until I lost my entire mind.

“I fucking love you both, so much.” I whined desperately as a huge, mind bending, world changing orgasm ripped through me.

Whether it was because I’d achieved the orgasm he desired or if it was the overwhelmingness of feeling as Noah slid into his tight ass but Sam’s tongue play was immediately different. “She-eye-it.” Sam groaned as he buried his face into my pussy. But there was to be no rest for the wicked or even time to get my breathing back under control. No with a last parting lick, Sam fluidly moved up my body and pressed the flared head of his cock into me before I had even coasted down. That sent me back into ‘rockets’ red glare’ territory.

When my ears were no longer ringing with the sounds of my screams of pleasure and passion, I heard Noah moaning, “Cum on Sammy boy’s dick again, Sexy Mama. His ass gets so fucking tight when he’s trying not to bust his nut.” The smirk on his face was so sexy it send a zing of pure desire to my clit and I found myself doing as told involuntarily. The next two hours flew by in a haze of shared orgasm, screams, grunts, moans and gasps. Noah and I made sure that the other knew there were no hard feelings about earlier. We used our hands and our mouths on each other as Sam made love to Noah. Puck was definitely right when he pointed out that our connection, our love, was just too good and too strong to even try for emotionless sex.

The guys had gotten home around one thirty and we didn’t stop making love long enough to look at the clock until almost six. We were supposed to meet the family at Scarpetta in Chelsea for our seven o’clock reservations. I showered quickly, rushing through all my ablutions and making way for Noah and then Sam to shower and dress too. I would be able to pick out my hair on the train so instead I used that time to lotion from head to toe, noticing a few really tender spots that I hoped wouldn’t darken into hickeys until after dinner. I went with a dress up standard, matching black lace lingerie and topped that with a cute little cap sleeved, knee length, faux wrap ruffle dress. I grabbed a pair of Michael Kors shooties and tossed them into my purse. I slipped my feet into some flip flops and did my face. I had skipped the foundation and barely lined my eyes, and I was still the last one dressed.

I headed down to find that everyone was waiting on me. Even Ryan had come up, probably to see that was taking us so long. Kirsten and Sandy were meeting us at the restaurant with the rest of the remaining parental units. Like NYU, Princeton’s orientation was running concurrently with Columbia’s, so the adult Cohens had made it their business to make sure that they both attended both. Sandy and Kirsten spent alternate days in New Jersey and Manhattan. However they had also spent their nights at the Plaza, so it wasn’t like they were roughing it to make things work. I will say that no matter the difference in how their kids came into their lives, Sandy and Kirsten were great at showing both of their sons that they loved them. Santana and Britts were looking great, Satan in black and white and Brittany in raspberry pink. Kurt looked straight up Manhattan. But we were in too much of a rush for me to even congratulate them on their fierce fashions. We headed out and boarded the right train.

We made it with barely any time at all to spare. Dinner was lively and conversation filled. Sam and I both decided to tell the family about our epiphanies, of course we left out the nudity and sex. My parents, the Lopezes and Becah were the only ones of our parental unit group flying out early the next morning. The other adults had needed to get back to work and had left the weekend before. Kurt was to be the first of us to start classes. His classes started the next day at the same time the Cohen’s flight was scheduled to take off. The rest of us all started classes the Tuesday after Labor Day…we were really looking forward to it, and we told each other and our parents all about our advisory meetings and the classes we were getting ready to start. We were all going to have a pretty hard course load. Sam, Puck and I all had seven classes between the two schools. Puck and I each had one lab at Juilliard, and Sam had his guitar lab plus a lab for his science class. Blaine was only carrying a five class load, but one of those was a PE class. Santana’s load was about like Sam, Puck and mine. Artie’s about like Blaine’s. Kurt’s was the heaviest, and Brittany’s the lightest. But no matter how much hard work was on the horizon, the future was just days from getting underway and we were beyond ready.


End file.
